“I just came to tell you that plans have changed. I have better things to do than hang out with you just because my dad asked me to.”
Brynn’s chocolate brown eyes tore away from mine and shot over to her friends. In the afternoon sun, Sage’s caramel skin glistened exotically. She was chattering away with Lauren and Emily, who was impatiently looking over in Brynn’s direction.
“Yes, I see your adoring fans are waiting for you. I wouldn’t put much stock into how tight you are with them anymore. They seem to have loose lips lately.”
“You have no right to talk about my friends, let alone think about them. Besides, my friends are nothing without me,” she smiled smugly.
I could see them over Brynn’s shoulder. Lauren was playing with her car keys, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She mouthed something to Sage, who nodded in exaggerated agreement.
By the time Brynn glanced back they were gone. Three car doors shut a few parking spaces away and I caught a glimpse of three heads laughing inside the warm, leather interior of Lauren’s Celica as they slowly began to drive away.
The look of utter shock seeped into Brynn’s expression, but she quickly recovered.
“I’m meeting them later,” she said indignantly, as if their taking off without her was a simple thing, and she began to fumble through her purse for her car keys. Giving up with a sigh, Brynn zippered her Juicy bag and gave me an unrecognizable look.
“Something wrong?”
As if admitting the truth behind her strained appearance was beneath her, she rolled her eyes and looked toward the school. “My keys are in Lauren’s locker.”
“Your keys?”
Brynn sighed with exasperation, “I stashed my stuff in her locker after lunch because it was closer to my AP French class, alright?”
I had to admit, seeing her squirm like this was highly entertaining, but it didn’t erase the fact that Brynn no longer had a way home, at least not with someone she wanted to go with.
Visions of my mother and Nate in his sleek little Infiniti, driving along, talking about how his demon-daughter and I would bond over the next two days surfaced.
I didn’t want to do it, but …
“I can give you a ride.”
Brynn looked at me for a very long seven seconds, and sighed. “Whatever.” With a hurried glance around us, she opened the passenger side door and slid inside. As soon as she closed the door, a thought came to me. Did Brynn feel any remorse or guilt for her part in Claire’s death? Did it bother her to be in this car? Claire’s car? I looked over at her but she just looked like she always did. Annoyed.
The ten minute ride to Brynn’s house was worse than getting my wisdom teeth removed in ninth grade. I thought the silence after my mother and I argued was excruciating.
I tried to break the ice shortly after leaving the school parking lot, only to ask if she didn’t have her keys then how would she get into her house? I was dreading the possibility of having to spend the next few days with her, ordering Chinese and having to loan her my clothes. Fortunately, Brynn responded that she could get in through the back, and images of Ryan and me sneaking into her home on Friday night assaulted me.
I turned onto Whitman Street, heading towards the far end, where the road curved into the wide arc of a cul-de-sac. In the daylight, the gray dry-stacked home at 19 Whitman Street was breathtaking. A black iron fence ran the length of the front yard, breaking for the narrow flagstone walk, which led to an oversized arched doorway. It had black shutters that looked restored from an early nineteenth-century country home and a pristine yard full of butterfly bushes and wisteria that bloomed up until early fall.
Slowly, I steered my car up the long narrow drive that widened behind the house. Seeing the kitchen door made my palms sweat as I pictured the long hallway waiting behind it, the one that led to Dr. Dean’s personal office and the tiny closet Ryan and I huddled in for what seemed like a chilly eternity. I expected Brynn to slam the door in my face and bound away, but instead she shocked me and offered the opposite.
“You can come in if you want,” mumbling the invite over her shoulder as she headed for the door. I sat still, not quite sure I had heard her correctly. She stopped and turned towards me, the door swinging open to reveal the warmth of a French country kitchen inside. I suppose one doesn’t take in too much detail when they’re fleeing in terror.
“Well? Are you coming in or not?”
Part of me wondered if she had harmful intentions. Was a big kitchen knife waiting on the counter? Was this a trap to get me to admit I had broken in here Friday? My brain was one big sweaty mess, but still, I turned the key and the car’s engine came to a peaceful rest.
I stepped into the kitchen, the pleasant scent of cinnamon greeted me. Brynn had already shed her jacket and was in the process of pulling her brown hair into a messy ponytail. I had never seen her with her hair up before. I had always assumed she was too snobby to look so casual.
Unsure of what to say, I stated the predictable. “Your house is beautiful.”
“You’ve been here before.”
Oh my god. She knows.
“The picnic in August? When my dad invited your mom and she made you come along?”
“Oh, yeah.” I let the topic drop. It was a wonder she and I were even attempting to carry a conversation with each other.
“If you’re wondering why the heck I asked you in, it’s so you can tell your mother that we spent some time together, and you won’t have to make something up.”
Wow, I never thought Brynn would be into honesty.
She headed down the hall and I reluctantly followed. I’m sure it was my imagination, but as we ventured further into the heart of the house, the air felt colder. Brynn stopped for a second and looked at the closed study door with dark eyes, then proceeded to climb the thickly carpeted steps to the second floor, motioning that I should follow.
To the left of the Cinderella staircase we had just ascended, she flung a set of white double doors wide open, like a dignitary about to greet the press.
Beyond was a stark room, polished and pristine in shades of white and little girl pink.
I gingerly eased myself down onto the white eyelet comforter of Brynn’s king-sized bed. Brynn on the other hand showed no respect at all. She flopped down hard, pulled her knees up to her chest and sucked in a large breath.
“Nice room,” I couldn’t help feeling the uncontrollable urge to compliment. I never imagined I would be sitting on Brynn Hanson’s bed after school. What would it look like to someone else? Like we were friends now?
I sighed.
Hardly.
It was too perfect to take in all at once, the lushness, the expense of it all. Obviously her room had been professionally decorated, unlike mine, and I made a mental note to myself never to let Brynn see my room. Unless of course, I wanted photos of my personal space plastered all over YouTube so the student body at Carver High could laugh. No thank you.
For as beautiful as her room was, it had a sterile quality to it, sort of a “borrowed” feel. I couldn’t explain it. It just seemed the opposite of Brynn’s personality. I really half-expected to walk in to find four black walls with skull posters, because that’s what emanated from her on a daily basis. Not that she was a goth girl. Far from it. She was hateful and prissy and above everyone else.
I let my eyes roam over to the small white table next to her bed. A pretty seashell frame held the picture of a beautiful woman. She was strikingly familiar, and then for lack of a better conversation I asked the inevitable.
“Oh, is this your mother?” I wanted to reach for the frame, to touch it, as if my fingers yearned to hold it in my hands. There was something so warm and inviting about her smile. She projected an inner glow that was the entire opposite of Brynn, although they did resemble each other enough.
“Her name was Mary,” Brynn’s voice was flat.
In the photo, Mary was leaning against an iron railing, her timeless white pant suit accentuating her lithe frame. Birds hovered in the background, suspended in flight as if the camera’s shutter had agitated the entire flock, making a stunning portrait.
“When was this taken?” I asked, looking for a conversation starter.
Brynn didn’t raise her head. Instead she picked at a loose thread on her comforter, pulling and pulling without care, as if she meant to unravel the entire spread.
“She was on her honeymoon, in Italy.”
“So your dad took the picture.” I couldn’t help staring at the beautiful woman that was the mother of such a piece of work.