Conversion (36 page)

I reached across the quilt and took her hand. She squeezed back.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I just feel so stupid. My best friend was in love. And I didn’t know.”

She smiled and pressed her lips to her doll’s head.

“Yeah,” she said, and her eyes shone.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Um. Maybe? I know it doesn’t make any sense, but he’s just . . .”

“I know.”

She flopped over on an elbow, taking the doll with her.

“I was over sixteen,” she whispered. “It wasn’t, like, illegal or anything. But he thinks we should wait. He thinks I should be eighteen.”

I nodded. “And what do you think?”

She rolled onto her back. “I think it sucks,” she said, laughing. “But I’ll be eighteen this summer, right?”

I laughed, too.

“He’s going to grad school next year,” she said. “In Providence.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s not so far.”

“No,” Emma said. Her smile was hopeful. “Not too far.”

I flopped down next to her and took one of her bears under my arm. “You really thought it was Clara’s fault?”

“I don’t know.” She brought her doll’s head up under her chin, crushing its Puritan bonnet to her skin. “It had been, like, three months, and we were seeing each other all the time. I mean, all the time. And then all of a sudden he got all distant. Not returning my texts. Putting off when he was going to see me. Avoiding me at school. He never once looked at me in AP US, not after we came back from winter break. You didn’t notice?”

I shook my head.

“I couldn’t figure out what happened. And he wasn’t saying anything to me at all. Then one afternoon I saw him talking to Clara in the hall. I just thought . . . Well.” She smiled sadly. “It’s Clara. You know? I mean, what would you think?”

“I know.” I nodded.

Emma put her hands over her face, shuddering at the memory. “I just . . . It made me crazy. It made me
crazy,
Colleen. I couldn’t stand thinking about him with someone else.”

Her voice caught. She shivered, and wiped the wet out from under her eyes with a brave smile.

“Is that why he left St. Joan’s?” I asked. “Because of you?”

She nodded. “Well,” she said, rolling her eyes. “God. My mom saw texts from him, on my phone. So that’s how she found out.”

“Emma. Jesus.”

“Yeah. She freaked. I mean,
freaked.
” The doll kept smiling its doll smile like nothing was amiss.

“God.”

“Yeah.”

“She said she was going to call the school. And she was going to ground me so bad, I mean, it was going to be school and home and that’s it, until, like, graduation. I think my brother talked to her. Made it sound like it was all Tad’s fault.”

“Did she call the school?”

“I never found out. The next day I got to campus, and he was gone. I didn’t know what had happened. If he was sick, or if he got fired, or what. And then, everything started happening, with Clara and everybody. Nobody seemed to care what happened to him. Like we were all too distracted to notice.”

“Did you hear from him, after he left?” I asked.

“Um. Yeah.” She blushed.

“What’s that mean?”

“I maybe stalked him a little.”

“Well, duh,” I teased, smacking her on the ankle. “Making me your accomplice and everything.”

She grinned. “Sorry.”

We paused, breathing, listening to the distant sound of the Blackburns making dinner downstairs. I could hear Mark’s laughter.

“I was so upset,” she whispered. “Colleen, I can’t explain it. I thought I would lose my mind if he didn’t love me anymore. It’s like I would stop being myself. Stop existing if he didn’t love me the way I loved him.”

I stared at her, wondering. “Emma?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think . . .” I couldn’t make the words come out at first. It was too weird to say out loud. I tried again. “Do you think it was a coincidence?”

“Do I think what was a coincidence?”

“Well,” I demurred, “the other day, when I was here. I felt like it sort of . . .”

She watched me, those oyster eyes shining.

“Sort of what?”

“I mean.” I was helpless to explain. “I was talking backwards! It’s like—that’s not normal. Even if I’ve got conversion disorder or whatever.”

“No, you weren’t,” Emma said easily.

“I was! At the Willows, too. My head was splitting, and I was talking backward . . .” I trailed off.

Emma waited, her almost-invisible eyebrows raised.

“I mean, I’m not saying it was on purpose or anything . . .”

Emma smiled at me and reached over to hold my ankle in her hand. “Colleen,” she said, her voice low. “You’re going to be okay. Right? They’ve got everyone on the right drugs now and everything. Everybody’s getting better. It was scary, but it’s all over! And think what an awesome anecdote this is going to make when you get to college next fall. You’re one of the Danvers Mystery Illness girls. That’s completely awesome. You’ll be, like, famous.”

“But—” I started to protest.

“Emma!” her mom called up the stairs. “Dinner!”

We sat up, and Emma set her doll aside with finality. “Coming!” she called. Then to me she said, “I’m just going to finish this one e-mail to him.”

“You’re writing to Mr. Mitchell?”

“Tad.” Her face lit up when she said the name. “Summer’s coming. I’ll be eighteen. I’ll be eighteen very soon.”

“Okay,” I said. At least my friends still loved me even though I was mental.

Emma wrapped her arms around my neck and squeezed for a long time.

“You’re the best,” she whispered into my curls.

“No, you are,” I whispered back. Some of her butter-blond hair got in my mouth.

When I closed the door behind me, Emma was booting up her laptop, and her happiness was lighting up the room in a soft pink glow.

I was at the bottom of the stairs and almost to the front door when a hand closed around my wrist. I stopped, finding myself held fast by Emma’s mom.

“Mrs. Blackburn,” I exclaimed. She was obscured by the shadow under the stairwell, and I could barely see her.

“Shhhhh,” she whispered. The sound of it raised goose bumps on my arms.

“I was just—” I stumbled to explain myself, though I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong that needed explaining.

“Shh,” Mrs. Blackburn said again, drawing me closer.

I swallowed, and let myself be pulled under the stairwell.

“My Emma’s like me, you know,” Mrs. Blackburn said, so quietly that it almost sounded like her voice was happening inside my head.

I hesitated. “She is?”

“Yes.”

I waited, unsure what I was supposed to say.

“It’s better she stay here. For school,” Mrs. Blackburn continued in that nonexistent voice of hers.

I licked my lips. “I guess,” I allowed. Mrs. Blackburn’s grip on my wrist tightened.

“She’s delicate,” Emma’s mom continued, barely audible over the laughter of her family in the kitchen.

“She is?” I asked. Emma, who sailed and played field hockey?

“She’s”—Mrs. Blackburn drew the words out with care—“
prone to spells
. But it can be managed. Helps to have the family close by. I’m only telling you so you don’t have to worry.”

My mouth went dry.

“But how did you—” I stopped, because it almost seemed as though her eyes were glowing faintly red.

“Anyhow,” Mrs. Blackburn said, her smile widening, a tooth glinting in the darkness under the stairs. “They said what caused it, in the news. Didn’t they.”

“Y—yes.” I swallowed.

“Good. So there’s no problem.”

The hand released my wrist.

“It’s always nice to see you, Colleen. Tell your parents hello from us.”

Mrs. Blackburn melted away into the darkness under the stairs, and when she was gone, I wondered if the conversation had really happened at all.

DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS

THURSDAY, ST. VITUS’S DAY, JUNE 28, 2012

C
olleen! Fifteen minutes!”

“Crap!” I held two nearly identical sweaters in my hands and made an impulsive choice, stuffing one on the top of my rucksack and chucking the other onto the floor of my closet. Downstairs, I heard my father call out, “Is she about ready?”

“Almost ready!” I hollered down the stairs.

Wheez, who proved to be sitting on my bed for I don’t know how long, singsonged, “You’re going to miss your plane, Colleen.”

“I’m not.” I was shuffling through a pile of books on my desk, trying to decide which ones to bring to England. “Argh,” I muttered. I couldn’t choose. I wanted to pack enough to read, but I didn’t want them to be too heavy.

Deena was meeting me at the airport, and we were going to hike around East Anglia for July. It was my parents’ graduation present. Pretty cool. I thought they’d be disappointed that Fabiana beat me out by that tenth. I mean, it was my own fault. Ms. Slater hounded me for weeks, until she finally gave up. I never did finish the extra-credit paper about Ann Putnam. Fabiana deserved valedictorian anyway. She’d always been a teeny bit ahead of me. The real killer was, I didn’t even get salutatorian. I know, right? Anjali got it! Guess she wasn’t the only one who was playing things close to the chest that spring.

Jason Rothstein dressed in a tuxedo like a normal person for the spring formal, and so did Spence. His snowboarding bruise wasn’t even that bad by the time he got back. I don’t know what he was so worried about. I still have the picture on my phone. He and Jason pretended like they didn’t care about not getting into Harvard. I don’t know, maybe they really didn’t care. I mean, I know Spence was a legacy, so that might have been kind of hard to take. Not that Spence has anything to complain about, though—he’ll be at Yale with Anjali. A good excuse for me to visit.

Deena got into Tufts, and she told me yesterday that Japan Boy got in, too. So that’s going to be pretty interesting. I mean, they’ve been Skyping all year, but she hasn’t seen him in person since her summer abroad. It could be weird. But maybe it’ll be amazing. Who knows?

I heard that Father Molloy’s going to stay the new dean of the upper school at St. Joan’s Academy. I don’t know if Ms. Slater is going back next year or not, but we all did really well on the AP US History exam, so I think they should really consider keeping her if they can. Periodically we still see something in the news about more testing being done at the school, or experts talking about how common conversion disorder really is, and how it’s yet another symptom of how much pressure adolescent girls are under these days. How our childhoods are ending too soon, and we should really look to the example of history to understand how to let children really be children for longer, ’cause, like, everything was better back in the olden days. Whatever. Frankly, St. Joan’s is already starting to feel kind of far in the past to me. There’s so much more that lies ahead.

Clara’s going to Boston College, as we all knew she would. I don’t know whatever happened with the TV movie Jennifer Crawford heard about, but probably nothing. Clara’s talking totally normally now, like nothing ever happened. The Other Jennifer’s kept her hair short, and it looks really adorable. I think she’s going to Pine Manor next year. Leigh Carruthers and Elizabeth are both going to UMass, and Elizabeth told me not too long ago that she’s being considered for the field hockey team next year, as a freshman. Pretty hard core.

We’re all on variations of the same antidepressant. Clara and I had a confessional moment about it in the library washroom right before graduation. It made her really sleepy at first, too. But now it’s like our little secret. And it’s worked. We’re all back to our normal selves.

“Colleen! Your father’s in the car!”

“Mom! I’m coming!” I shouted. “Jeez.”

My phone vibrated. I grinned.

I’m going to miss you

My grin spread wider.

Me too. I’ll call you from the airport. Have news!

The phone buzzed with an instantaneous response.

News?!

I laughed, delighted, and lightning-thumbed him back.

Patience, my young Padawan. Calling in 30.

“What news?” Wheez asked, her nose peering over my shoulder.

“Wheez!” I pushed her way. “Jesus.”

But I was smiling too widely to be really annoyed with her.

My news, which my parents didn’t know, and which Spence didn’t know, and which Deena and Anjali and Emma didn’t know, was that that morning I got an e-mail from Judith Pennepacker.

It was about my position on the Harvard wait list.

I know! Could they have kept me waiting any longer? Until now, everyone thought I was going to my safety. Dartmouth was a total bust, and so was Williams. It sucked. Everyone said it was an incredibly competitive year, and that there wasn’t anything wrong with going to your safety school, and even students with really top GPAs like mine were still going to their safeties, and it didn’t matter and I shouldn’t be upset about it. Not that I wouldn’t be excited to go to my safety, but . . . I mean. Come on.

Anyway, I’m pretty psyched to be in the same city as Emma. Or near enough. Beverly’s not so far at all.

“Hey,” Michael said from my door, pulling his earbuds out.

“Hey, Mikey,” I said, choosing my last few paperbacks and cramming them into the zipper pocket on the top of the rucksack.

The car honked.

“Colleen!” My mother rattled the handrail on the stairs, her signal that I’d better hurry it up.

“Michael,” he corrected me.

“Michael.” I grinned, going over to give my brother a hug.

“Hey, okay,” he said, nose crushed by my shoulder. “Look, I didn’t come here for some big scene.”

“Oh, yeah? What’d you come in for, then?” I released him and hoisted my rucksack up. Whoa, damn. So, maybe I packed too many books.

“I just wanted to see if you needed this back. I kind of took it earlier.”

He held out my original copy of
The Crucible.
It was all dog-eared and there was a big crack in the spine, and it looked like he’d spilled coffee on it.

“Um.” I slid my other arm through the shoulder strap and felt the weight spread itself more evenly across my back. This was better. This, I could carry.

“Colleen, I swear to God, we’re going to the airport without you if you don’t come down this minute!”

Which was a completely hollow threat, because what would be the point of them going to the airport without me? Just to prove something? But anyway, it was time to go.

Michael tried to put the play in my hands. “I should’ve, like, asked you. Before I took it,” he muttered. “So anyway. Here it is back, if you want it.”

“It’s okay, Michael.” I grinned at him, hooking my thumbs in my rucksack straps. “I don’t think I’m going to need it.”

Michael shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, turning to go.

“Can I have it, Mikey?” Wheez asked, trailing after him down the hall. I smiled at her retreating back, but she didn’t see.

“Okay,” I said to myself, looking around to see what I’d forgotten. Rucksack, check. Hiking boots, on. Hat, rolled up in the outside mesh thing on the rucksack. Passport, in my hip pocket. I was ready.

I stepped through the door of my bedroom, calling “Coming, I’m coming!” and made it halfway down the stairs before I realized that I’d forgotten my phone. Outside, I heard the station wagon engine rumble to life.

Dammit.

I turned and stumped back up the stairs, burst into my childhood bedroom, wrapped my fist around the phone I’d almost left on my desk, and turned to go, this time for good.

I spotted a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye.

On the tree branch just outside my bedroom window, almost invisible in the shadows of the summer leaves, perched a tiny yellow bird.