I didn’t know which room was Laurie’s because when I came yesterday, I met them in the library. Now, I passed a bathroom with a big claw-foot tub and a walk-in shower. The hallway was dark, even though the sun wasn’t fully gone for the night.
When I got to the next-to-last door, I could see a sliver of light cast onto the hardwood floor in the room. Walking slowly by it, I realized this was Laurie’s room. My sister was lying on his floor with a book in her hand, her usual relaxed face was wreathed in a smile, and she didn’t notice me standing in the doorway. Laurie was on the bed, his eyes on his cell phone, and the speaker on his desk was playing soft electronic music. I knocked on the door and said my sister’s name. Laurie called me inside.
“You’re late for dinner, so Meredith sent me over here to get you.”
Laurie didn’t say anything, just lifted his head up, waved at me with his free hand, his phone in the other. I noticed that he had on loose-wearing bracelets made of strings and beads.
Jo checked her phone and nodded. “We were just talking about the library here. You should see it. There’s a huge piano in there, it’s so dope.” Jo sounded like a teenager from a Karen McCullah movie.
“I’m the only one who plays it, and seriously, I barely touch it. My grandpa’s had it for-fucking-ever,” Laurie commented from the bed. “Come in, Beth, you can sit down.”
I walked to the chair in the corner of the room. A stack of magazines was atop it, which Laurie indicated I should move so I could sit down. I sank into it, and the black leather was warm and smelled like cedar and tobacco. A long, body-length pillow was on the floor next to the wallpapered wall. The Laurence house had more of a New Orleans feel to it than ours, likely because it was much older than ours. We were only the second family to live in our house, even though Fort Cyprus was so very, very old. Meredith said there had been a fire in the original house, started by the youngest daughter of the last family to live there. The house burned to the ground and the father was severely burned, but everyone survived.
Our house was a newer build with gray siding and a deep porch. The Laurence house was in the Greek Revival style, on the corner of Nightshade and Iris, and it had more books and tchotchkes than I’d ever before seen in my fifteen years. There was an old feel in the air of the place. It tasted like cinnamon and clove. There were shadows in every corner, and I immediately saw what Jo saw in it. Jo craved danger, and here it was, in the safest way possible. The creepy house didn’t have a personality like that of our house. In the Laurence house, darkness crept around the walls and lingered through the thick air.
Laurie’s room was full of things. Everywhere I looked there were posters, records, books, barely a foot of uncovered space anywhere.
“Beth, what kind of music do you like? Your sister was just telling me you love Bastille.”
Jo didn’t say anything and I didn’t look at her. Laurie was nice, but I hated talking to people I didn’t know. It made my skin itch.
With a burning breath in my lungs, I responded, “I do. I play the piano and keyboard. A little on guitar, but I’m awful at it.”
“Shut the hell up—you are not!” Jo said from the floor. She clicked her feet together. Her black bootees were missing a buckle on one foot. I meant to fix it, but had forgotten. She broke it the same night Meg and Shia got into their last big fight a few months ago. Until this week, Jo had gone back to wearing sneakers and lace-up boots.
I felt my entire face burn. “I’m not that good.”
“I’m sure you’re great.” Laurie smiled at me and set his phone down.
My cell phone started ringing from my bag, and Jo sat up. The ringtone was an Ed Sheeran song that my mom had listened to every single day since my dad left.
“She’s calling.” I stood up quickly. I gave Laurie a little wave and waited for Jo by the door.
She told me and Laurie that she had to run to the bathroom for a moment. Well, technically she said, “I’m gonna pee. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
So I walked downstairs alone. I passed the room that I could see from the window in our kitchen. Even before I went inside, I had known about the piano from seeing Jo watch Laurie play it through the window, and I saw it up close and personal when I came into the house the first time. I looked behind me, hoping no one would be around. It was clear. There were always housekeepers or someone coming to the house, or worse, I didn’t want to run into Old Mr. Laurence again.
I walked over to the piano. The sleek Seiler was positioned just in front of a wide, oak-paned bay window. It was the window I’d often watch Laurie play through. I slid my pointer finger over a sharp black key, and a thin layer of dust coated the tip when I pulled it away. I blew it off and sat down on the bench. The typically quick beat of my heart slowed slightly as I rolled my shoulders and lifted my hands in the air, my thumbs hovering over middle C. I didn’t know how loud the instrument was going to be, but I tapped my thumb on the key to gauge it. It was pretty low, and I cared slightly less if someone caught me now that I was sitting here, touching the keys. It had been so long since I had played on anything but a cheap keyboard, and since Meredith let me start homeschool, I had been using the old keyboard my parents got me for Christmas four years before.
After playing for a few seconds I realized I wasn’t playing a song I knew; my fingers were playing the familiar keys of a song I was working on before I left school. I gave myself a few more seconds to play before I pulled my hands away and left the room.
Seeing a shadow in the hallway on my way out, I hoped it was Jo or Laurie.
19
meg
John was coming home today.
I couldn’t believe he was finally coming home.
I had been counting down the days and the hours and now the minutes until he was back at Fort Cyprus. I was dressed in a long black shirt with a heart neckline and cutout shoulders. I wore a peekaboo shirt once before with John and he couldn’t keep his hands off me. I hoped it would be the same this time. I had been playing over so many scenarios in my head regarding how it would go when John got back to me.
I sat down at my vanity and checked my email on my cell phone.
I had one, from John. My heart sped up and I clicked it immediately.
The message was from only a few minutes ago. The subject line read Tell me.
Hey Meg,
What’s up? I’ve been thinking a lot about when I get home and I don’t think I can do this anymore. I’m confused.
I’m sorry.
2nd Lieutenant Brooke
I read the message again and felt the blood drain from my face.
After the fourth read, I tossed my phone onto the vanity like it was on fire. My makeup-brush canister went flying and scattered brushes all over the floor. They rolled past my feet, and a thick kabuki brush stopped at the cutout toes of my Steve Maddens. I had gotten a bloodred pedicure because John liked my toes painted. He told me that once.
I remembered every compliment he had ever given me.
John Brooke didn’t say much. His words came less often, but that made me appreciate them more.
I was trying to be rational, to think before I made any moves, but it was hard. I didn’t know if I should respond, delete it, or forward it to someone for a second opinion.
Where was this coming from? John would be home that night, in just two hours! What could have happened in the last day and a half that would make him so confused? The last time we talked, he teased me about my dislike of superhero movies, and I promised to watch at least one with him. He talked about his mother up in Maine and his sister who had just had her third baby. There were no signs of anything being off.
I told him I couldn’t wait to touch him again. I went into a little detail on what I had planned for him. The line was silent for a beat, then he sucked in a breath and told me I was killing him. It made me melt from the inside out, and I couldn’t wait to touch him. I thought we would be in a warm hotel bed by ten tonight. I thought he would be ins
ide me, telling me how much he missed me as he made love to me. How much he needed me and felt lost without me. In the morning, we would have fancy hotel pancakes with things like purees and powdered sugar on the side. I was supposed to feed him fancy pancakes and tease him until he rolled me over onto my back and made love to me on high-thread-count sheets.
What would I tell people?
What was I supposed to tell Mrs. King? Oh, you know, John Brooke broke up with me instead of proposing, and now I’m single and Shia and Bell Gardiner are still engaged, and I’m single, working for you. Did I mention I’m single again?
How could John do this to me? And through fucking email? It shook me to the bone, all of my muscles aching at the same time. This feeling was insanity itself. The burning anxiety of the social failure alone was enough to put me in an early grave—add to that being single again and dealing with everyone hearing that he ended things through email.
I should have known it was all too good to be true. This was a typical move made by the ever-predictable men in my life. My ex-boyfriend River had done the same thing, only through text message, and after sending private pictures of me to half the school.