Goodbye, Rebel Blue Hardcover (20 page)

“And?”

“I’m pissed off because I’m missing track practice.”

“But what’s below all that anger?”

I roll my neck along my shoulders. “Okay. I’m tired of battling Mr. Phillips. I feel guilty about letting down Pen and the track team. I’m worried Aunt Evelyn will take away my scooter.” And after talking to Percy this morning, I’m confused about pennies and higher beings and guardian angels.

Some people are afraid of death and what lies beyond.

Shut up, Kennedy!
And then there’s Kennedy. I can’t get her out of my head, and because of my vow to complete her bucket list, I can’t get her out of my life. A dead girl’s taking over, and I’m losing control. It’s driving me insane.

Macey cranks the paper-towel handle, turning and turning. “Uh, that’s a lot of feelings.”

“You think?” My head is spinning, and I wrap my fingers around the edge of the sink to keep from sinking to the floor. “Do you believe in a higher being, Mace, that something has power over us and the choices we make?”

Macey continues to crank the handle, but the circular motion grows slower and jerkier. “I believe there’s a lot of bad in the world, bad things most of us can’t manage on our own. So, yeah, I believe in something good and big enough to battle the bad.”

“And stuff like that makes me even more confused. I feel like my world’s been rocked.” By a bucket list that’s not my own. A growl gurgles up my throat. “So what do I do, Macey? What do I do with all these stupid feelings?”

She tears off the paper towel and hands me the three-foot length. “You can help me bake pies.”

A laugh puffs over my lips as I take the giant paper towel and wipe my hands. “Make pies?”

“Because sometimes you need something warm and sweet and comforting. Sometimes you just need pie.”

I wad up the paper towel and lob it into the trash. Not much in my world is making sense, but somehow pie does. “How did you come up with this pie and anger stuff?”

“Years of therapy.”

I picture the faint white lines on the undersides of her arms. “And it helped you? All those years of therapy?”

Macey slips her hands into her hoodie pockets. “I think I’m making more progress with pies.”

She leans against the door and pushes it open. “They’re … uh … changing my life.”

Change. My world is changing, too. Nate. The track team. Flash mobs.

Together Macey and I walk back to the detention room. I turn into the doorway, but she keeps walking.

“Hey,” I call out. “We have another hour and forty-five minutes of detention. Where are you going?”

“The bake-off is in two weeks, and this afternoon all the competitors get to tour the event kitchens and confirm final supply and equipment lists.”

“But you can’t bail out of detention. Not again. Lungren will go postal.”

Macey’s ghost of a smile is back. “I don’t have detention today.”

After detention, I dash to the track as the team is starting their cooldown. I find Coach Evil. “I’m sorry I missed practice. I had detention. What do you want me to do?”

The coach tilts her chin toward my knee, still bandaged but no longer throbbing in pain. “Give it a rest today. Show up tomorrow, and we’ll put you through a full workout.”

“That’s it?”

She looks mildly surprised, like you might upon finding a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket of a pair of jeans you dig out when the weather cools. “Thanks for checking in, Rebecca.”

I don’t head for the showers, where Pen will most likely be frowning and where Neanderthal Boy lurks under the bleachers. My pink sneakers looped over my shoulder, I head for the beach.

It’s late afternoon, and I have plenty of time left to squeeze in another bucket-list item, but just like I need to rest my sore knee, I need a break from bucket lists, from acting out another girl’s dreams and desires. I need to be me, a blue-haired, barefoot girl who likes sand between her toes.

Today the beach is full of people. College-age students play beach volleyball, and a dozen kids build sand castles. I find a quiet section where the sand is coarser, the waves stronger, and here I hunt for the sea’s tears. I walk along the high-tide line among the pebbles, shells, and seaweed, prime real estate for sea glass. After a half mile, I spot a wedge of orange, and a tingle races up my spine. Orange sea glass is extremely rare, and I’ve yet to find a piece. I bend over and dig, unearthing a faded plastic milk cap. With a sigh, I stuff the trash into my pocket and keep searching. The sun starts to sink, but still I walk.

I meander along the shore past the grassy dunes until I reach the mudflats, and I realize I’m no longer searching for sea glass. I scan the flats and surrounding dunes and bushes for a pair of dimples that are sweeter and warmer than pie, but I don’t see Nate. He’s been checking the nesting habitat a few times every day, anxious to see if the migrating birds will adopt the improved grounds, but I must have missed him.

I’m about to leave when I see a flash of orange in the brush on the near side of the flats. Most likely another piece of trash. A bush with waxy, gray-green leaves shakes, and seconds later, a small gray bird with an unmistakable orange beak and black cap shoots from the leaves. I reach for my phone to take a picture, but the sea swallow darts over the dunes and disappears. But I saw that orange beak and can’t wait to tell Nate.

Inside the Bolivar house, Nate’s in the kitchen helping Nate the Younger with math. Somewhere Violin Girl plays slow, waltzlike music.

“I saw a sea swallow today at the mudflats,” I say as I walk into the kitchen.

Nate looks up with an excited expression. “They’re here?”

“Just one, but I’m sure it was one of the endangered birds. Looked just like the decoys we painted.”

“Sounds like we need to celebrate,” he says with a lift of both eyebrows. “Let me finish up with Mateo.”

A hand settles on my leg, and I look down to see the tiniest Bolivar. “I lit a candle for you at Mass this week.” His fingers slip into my hand. He’s so serene, so holy.

“Uh … why?”

He tugs on my hand, and I bend so we’re eye level. “Because I care about your soul.”

“Oh … that’s nice.”

Gabby walks in. Today she wears a black beret with black leggings, a black T-shirt, and ballet slippers, nailing a sixties vibe. She thrusts a sketch pad at me. On the page is a hand-drawn dress.

“What do you think?”

Nate cranes his head and looks over my shoulder. “I don’t think it would look good on me.”

Gabby swats him, and I laugh.

“It’s for me,” Gabby says with a stomp of her slippered foot. “It’s my prom dress.”

“You’re going to a prom for ten-year-olds?” I ask.

“No, silly. It’s for my prom when I’m in high school.”

“And you’re designing it now?”

“Of course. Here’s what I had in mind for colors.” She holds up a large ring with squares of fabric attached and selects a deep, rich red color, like the raspberries Macey and I saw in our trek to the farmers’ market last weekend.

I squint at Gabby. “Perfect.”

“I’m so glad you think so.” She throws her arms around my waist and hugs. I’m not sure what to do with my hands. Patting her head seems weird. I stand like a scarecrow with Gabby on one side, Saint Boy on the other. At last Gabby pulls away. “So when do I get blue hair?”

“What did your mom say?”

Her lips press into a pout. “Like what she says matters.”

“Yes, Gabby, it does.” Aunt Evelyn cried the day I walked out of the bathroom with a streak of Electric Blue #1111 in my hair. My mom would have loved blue hair, and I liked to think my art-loving father would too. Gabby looks at the floor. “Well?”

“Mom said no. She said it’s against the school dress code and will damage my hair.” Her hands ball into fists. “I told her you have beautiful hair and she’s a moron.”

“No, you didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t say that to your mom.”

“Of course I did. I’m mad as hell.”

Another household disrupted by my wrecking ball of destruction.
You were right, Cousin Pen
.

Nate unlatches Gabby’s tentacles and gives her shoulders a gentle shove. “Go channel some of your energy into Tia Mina’s new dance dress.” He points to Mateo. “You, math.” And he points to me.

“You and me, back patio.”

Outside on the patio, I stand on the bottom step. Before me stretches a giant backyard with wagons and bikes and scooters scattered among lawn chairs and a fire pit. In one corner, there’s a small plastic swimming pool, in the other a horseshoe pit. A place of chaotic happiness. Even the saint statue standing in a bed of flowers is smiling. He wears a long robe with a bird on his shoulder and deer at his feet.

I stand on the patio, frowning. “I’m teaching your little sister to swear and yell at your mother.

This is not good, Nate, not good at all.”

“Families fight, and they make up.”

“But Gabby’s obsessed with this blue-hair thing.”

“No worries, Reb. I’ll talk to Mom when she cools off.” Because, like Kennedy, Nate has a way with people.

I rub a knuckle on the railing. “I’m a screwed-up person.”

Nate puts his arms around my shoulders, pulling my back into his chest. He feels solid, warm, and good. “We all are.”

“But some of us are more screwed up than others. I’m letting you know I’m definitely on the far right-hand side of the bell curve on this one.”

He runs his fingers along the strap looped across my chest. “It makes you more interesting.”

I tilt my head, looking up at him with doubt. “Interesting is good?”

He brushes his lips against the top of my head. “Interesting is amazing.”

I sink back against the wall of his chest, matching my breathing with his and smiling as our hearts beat in sync. He rests his chin on the top of my head. I wish I could freeze this moment.

Nothing else exists. No detention. No skinned knees and evil track coaches. No gropers under the bleachers. No doubts about who controls my life. No voice of a dead girl in my head. Just Nate and me and the beating of our hearts.

The door flies open, and Gabby runs onto the patio. “Mom called. She’s going to be late and needs you to pick up Tia Mina at the dance studio.”

“Duty calls,” Nate says, but he doesn’t move.

“And you are most dutiful.” I drag myself from his arms and climb the steps so we’re face-to-face. I slide my fingers through his hair and pull him toward me, pressing myself against him. “I think you’re pretty amazing, too.” I brush my lips across his, and everything bad and ugly and confusing ceases to exist.

When I pull away, he pulls me back. A dimple carves either side of his mouth. “Go to prom with me, Rebel.”

“Ha-ha,” I say. “I needed a laugh today, especially after getting detention and missing track practice.” The muscle along the back of his jaw twitches, and if I weren’t so close, I wouldn’t have noticed it. “You are joking, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re joking.” Sweat pops up along the back of my neck.

He loops his arm around my shoulders. “Of course.”

“NO, REBEL, NO, NO, NO!” COACH EVIL STANDS ON the track, waving her hands. “You can’t slow down for the baton pass. You’re throwing off the other runner.”

“Heaven forbid I do that,” I say under my breath as I jog back to the start line. You’d think after sixty-five tries, I’d be able to hand off a baton to a teammate. I assume the ready position at my start line.

Pen, who’s been practicing long, graceful jumps for the past hour in the sandpit to my right, jogs over to the line. “You’re close, Reb,” she says. “It’s all about timing and rhythm and muscle memory.

Pay attention to your rhythm. Count your steps if you need to.”