Shallow Pond (11 page)

I smiled at myself in the mirror. I liked it.

Thirteen

There was a soft tapping on the bathroom door, almost too faint to be heard.

“Babie?” Annie asked. “Are you feeling all right?”

I'd been in the bathroom a long time. I glanced around and saw the floor covered in clippings of strawberry-blond hair. I looked back at my new reflection in the mirror and saw how it would look to Annie's eyes—like I had snapped. What would she think? Probably she would want to search my room for drugs. I couldn't go out there. I couldn't face her. Not yet.

“I think I've come down with a stomach bug,” I said. I used my best intestinal-distress voice.

“Can I get you anything?”

“No, I, um, I'm just going to clean up in here, and then I think I'm going to bed.”

“Well, I hope you feel better soon.”

I swept up the hair from the floor with my hands and dumped it into the trash can. I stared down at it, lying there. It used to be a part of me, and I had this weird feeling that I was looking at my old self there in the trash can. That was Babie Bunting, younger sister of Annie and Gracie Bunting, and she was history. This new me was Barbara, a free spirit, independent. Clearly, the new me did not belong in Shallow Pond. I was a citizen of the world, ready to spread my wings and fly. Well, just as soon as I was ready to announce this independence to the rest of the world. In the meantime, I had evidence to bury.

I buried the clippings under the hair-dye package. I buried all of it beneath the plastic Rite Aid bag, then crumpled up a few tissues and threw those on top for good measure. I ran out of the bathroom and into my room, and shut the door behind me. I hardly ever kept the door of my room closed, but figured I could chalk it up to my illness. I needed my rest, couldn't be disturbed, that sort of thing. I knew Annie. She would still poke open my door later to check on me. So I would have to pull the covers up over my head when I went to bed. I knew I couldn't hide forever, but I decided I had to get used to things before I could find the courage to let my sister see the new me.

I went to bed early without dinner, and woke up in the middle of the night warm from sleeping burrowed under the covers, with a stomach that was growling in protest at its neglect. I tried to be as silent as possible as I scoured my room for something edible and found a package of M&Ms in a purse in my closet. I couldn't remember how long they'd been there, but figured they were probably safe to eat. I devoured them and went back to bed.

As a result of my late-night dinner of M&Ms, I woke up feeling like I really had come down with a stomach bug. My head was pounding and I felt nauseous. It wasn't so much courage that forced me to leave my bedroom, but the need for real food.

There was a note on the kitchen table from Annie. She'd already called the school to let them know I would be out sick. Then she'd gone to a doctor's appointment. I nearly had a heart attack. My sister had gone to the doctor? Perhaps we were all making some radical changes in our lives. Well, maybe not all of us; according to Annie's note, Gracie hadn't come in until late and was likely still asleep. Annie told me to get plenty of rest and feel better soon, and that she would see me later.

I did feel better after a full breakfast and a hot shower. In fact, I felt perfectly fine, and a little bit guilty for not going to school. I glanced at my phone. There were now roughly a billion text messages from Jenelle. She wanted to know how I was feeling. She wanted me to know that she was feeling extremely bored. She told me Zach had asked where I was. I was sitting on my bed scrolling through Jenelle's messages when Gracie finally stumbled down the hallway.

“Good afternoon,” I said. I'd forgotten momentarily about my hair.

“Oh my God,” she said. She stood there staring at me. Her eyes looked ready to pop right out of her skull. “Please tell me that's a wig.”

“It's not a wig.”

She marched into my room, grabbed hold of a hunk of my hair, and gave it a tug on the off-chance that I was lying.

“Ow,” I said, shoving her away.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked.

“I'm not the one who goes around pulling people's hair.”

“You look horrible.”

“I like it.”

“You can't possibly think that looks good. What did Annie say?”

“She hasn't seen it yet. She's at the doctor's.”

“What?” she asked. I shrugged. It was one of those mysteries of the universe, apparently. “Why aren't you at school?” she added.

“I'm sick,” I said.

“Sick in the head.”

“Stomach bug,” I said. “But I'm feeling better.”

She shook her head and walked away. I wondered if my hair really looked as bad as Gracie said it did. Perhaps she just needed time to get used to it.

The doorbell rang a few minutes later, and I heard Gracie answer it. I heard her using her flirting voice and assumed she must be talking to Cameron. I had no desire to see him, but I heard a familiar voice say my name. Barbara, not Babie. I jumped off the bed and ran down the stairs two at a time.

Zach stood at the front door while Gracie all but batted her eyelashes at him. It was hard to believe I was related to her. It was hard to believe that anyone could have ever mistaken me for her.

“Barbara!” Zach said. He was clearly surprised by my hair, but at least he hadn't said something along the lines of Gracie's “Oh my God.”

“So, I just want to know where you've been hiding this good-looking guy,” Gracie said. She gave Zach a playful pat on the arm, like they were old friends and not like he was someone she'd met a minute ago.

“Safe from your grabbing hands,” I said. I slipped past her and grabbed Zach's arm to lead him down the front steps. “I'll be back later,” I called over my shoulder.

We didn't say anything until we were seated in his car, and then we both tried to talk at once.

“Ladies first,” he said.

“Why aren't you in school?” I asked.

“I decided to leave early. I wanted to check on you.”

“You're not responsible for me.”

“I never said I was.”

“Let's just go somewhere,” I said. I glanced back up toward the house. I couldn't see Gracie, but I'm sure she was watching us from a window. Annie would probably be back any minute.

“Where do you want to go?” Zach asked.

“I don't care,” I said.

The car roared to life, and he drove a little too fast up the street. I thought at first he was headed back toward school, but then he turned, and we pulled into Memorial Park and parked facing the pond.

“So,” he said, “you did something different with your hair, right?” He was grinning like a fool. I punched him playfully on the arm. It felt like the sort of thing a girlfriend might do to her boyfriend. I blushed, but I think he was too busy staring at my hair to notice. Zach had this thing about him, and once again sitting there beside him I felt like I had known him my entire life, not just a couple of months.

“You think it looks awful,” I said. “It's okay, you can say it.”

“No, I don't think so. It's just a big change. I'm still getting used to it. It makes you look kind of artsy.”

I wondered if that was a compliment. I decided to take it as a compliment.

“Should we get out?” he asked. “You picked a good day for skipping school. It's pretty warm outside.”

It was one of those freakishly warm winter days that's sort of like a teaser of the spring weather that will eventually arrive. I didn't even mind that I hadn't grabbed a jacket, and only had on a sweatshirt over my T-shirt. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, but there was also a path cleared that led up to the frozen pond, and we walked toward it.

“So tell me,” Zach said, “is this radical transformation all for Mrs. Grimes's benefit?”

I laughed. “I just wanted a change.”

“Change is switching to mousse instead of gel. This is more like a complete overhaul.”

“You don't like it,” I said again. “My sister thinks it looks ugly.”

“This would be Gracie? The one who opened the door?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“For a moment or two I thought she was you. Then she opened her mouth.”

“Our voices are that different?” I asked.

“Not the voice, so much, but the way she was speaking
—all bubbly and happy.”

“So, what—you think I can't be bubbly and happy?”

“Oh, you're probably fully capable of it, but I've never actually seen it.”

I couldn't tell if he was kidding around or if he was serious. Maybe he was a little bit of both. I hadn't been exactly easygoing with him since the day we met, so probably he thought I was a difficult person, someone who wasn't all that fun to be around. But if that was the case, why had he shown up at my house?

We walked over some frozen snow to get to a weathered park bench that faced the pond. I sat down first. Zach sat beside me, but it seemed like he was being careful not to sit too close to me.

“You don't like your sisters?” he asked.

“I didn't say that,” I said. “I like Annie. Gracie is … well, she's nothing like me, like you said. It's not that we don't get along—it's just that we're so different. We don't always see eye to eye on things.”

“Still, it must be nice to have siblings. They're like older versions of you.”

“Have you even been listening to what I was saying?” I asked as an angry sigh passed through my clenched teeth.

“What I mean is, they've gone through all sorts of stuff before you, and they can help you out, give you advice, that sort of thing.”

“Both of my sisters have spent their entire lives in Shallow Pond. I hardly think they've got any advice worth giving.”

“So no one in Shallow Pond knows anything?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “The thing is, once I get out of here, I don't plan on coming back.”

“Not even to see your sisters?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But there's no reason they can't come visit me.”

“We're alike, you know,” Zach said.

“You plan on getting out of this town as soon as you can too?”

“I mean we're both independent. We don't need anyone else's help.”

Zach was definitely independent. He lived on his own, but me? Was I independent? I didn't really feel like it. If I was really independent, I would just pack my bags and leave, pull together enough money for a bus ticket and just dive right into the rest of my life. But I couldn't just run away, and that was because I wasn't independent. Not really.

“I'm tired of being all alone,” Zach said. “I'm tired of having to face everything on my own. Why am I telling you this?” He stood up suddenly and jammed his fists in his pockets. He began to kick stubbornly at the frozen snow. He muttered a few times beneath his breath like a crazy person. That, and the violent kicking, made me a little bit scared. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but I couldn't find the courage to speak.

“Look, I know you don't like me,” he said.

“I didn't say that.”

He held up his hand to silence me. “You didn't have to say it. I can tell. And it makes sense—what would ever possess you to be with a loser like myself?”

“You're
not
a loser.”

I wasn't sure if he heard me or not, because he turned away and looked out over the frozen pond.

“I try to imagine them, my parents, what they would have been like when they were my age,” he said. He didn't look at me. He stared out across the past as if he could see his unknown parents somewhere out there. “Maybe they were my age when they had me, too young to take care of a kid, and they didn't know what else to do with me. Maybe I was just something that would have gotten in the way of their life. Instead of going away to college or whatever, they would have had to spend their time taking care of me and working crappy jobs just to pay the bills.”

“So instead they just dumped you on the steps of a convent?” I asked. I couldn't imagine someone acting so heartless and cruel. What kind of life could their child ever have? That was completely unfair.

“What would you do?” he asked.

“If I were you?” I asked.

“What would you do if you got pregnant? Would you give up on all your dreams and just stay here in Shallow Pond to raise a kid?”

“I wouldn't get pregnant in the first place,” I said, but before the words had even left my mouth, Zach's question jogged loose something in my head. I knew someone who had given up on all her dreams and stayed in Shallow Pond to raise a child. Allegedly that child was her younger sister, but I recalled the photo album.

There were no pictures of Mom even when Gracie was a baby … like Mom was already dead at that point. Could it be? Could the girl who I'd always thought was my oldest sister actually be my mother?

I forgot about Zach, the bench I was sitting on, the pond, the entire external world. Annie wasn't old enough to be my mother. Only how did I know how old Annie really was? She looked older than she said she was. She looked old enough to be my mother. My heart was racing. I thought of the way Annie had always treated me—not the way one would treat a younger sister, but the way one would treat a daughter. It all fit—the reason she'd never left Shallow Pond, never gone away to school.