Mirror in the Sky (13 page)

SIXTEEN

On Tuesday, October 27, 2015, at 12:14 PM, Megan Stevens wrote:

Hey, Tara—

Sorry it's been so long. Argentina is fantastic! The food, the sights, the boys!!! It's beautiful out here, seriously you need to come visit. It took me a while to settle in, everything here is so different. I'm living in a neighborhood called Palermo Soho. My host family is great. My host father, Ernesto, cooks steak every night for dinner, and my host mother, Clara, insists that I drink wine with her every evening! The apartment I live in is kind of small, but I have my own room, and there's a balcony overlooking the street below. Ernesto and Clara are artists. They don't have kids of their own and
they say they don't plan on having any, but they love American teenagers. They say they host kids from all over the world to “open minds,” but I think they also do it to supplement some sort of trust fund they live off of.

This Terra Nova stuff is pretty crazy, huh? There's practically no other news here. That woman from the photo is giving an interview tomorrow, did you hear? I wish I were home so I could watch it with you.

Anyway, how are you? How is junior year going? Is Treem still completely insane?!? I get e-mails from her all the time, telling me to be safe, sending me articles about Argentina. I think she's one of those people who's never been anywhere outside of Connecticut. She sends me e-mails like I'm living in a war zone. What an idiot.

I really miss you. I miss my family too. I guess I'm homesick. Spanish is really hard to follow, and the girls here are kind of bitchy. It's been hard to actually meet people and make friends. I guess it's the same everywhere.

I wanted you to know I'm coming back for second semester! Yay! I hadn't planned on it, but now that I think about it, a whole year away is a lot, and besides, after senior year, I'll be going away again. I've also gained, like, ten pounds from eating a ton of dulce de leche and empanadas. They serve them from carts outside my school, and they're AMAZING. But can't get into my
bikini anymore, so I'm going to have to go on a steak diet or something!!!

Anyway, write back! And seriously, think about coming. Chau!

Megs

I thought about responding, but I couldn't. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach at the realization that I didn't want Meg to return next semester. So much had happened in the past couple of weeks—a planet had appeared in the sky, a radio signal had been detected. Nick Osterman had given me a ride to a party. My mother had announced that she was going to California for six months; my father had despaired. There was school and life, swim practice and hanging out at Veronica's house.

It always started small. A couple of cancer cells, the collapse of a bee hive. Nothing—not war or disappointment or hate or love—really happens in a snap, the way people sometimes think it does. It happens more slowly than that, over days and months and sometimes years, a thread undone here, a small tear there, until one day, the effects of time are so obvious that no one can ignore them.

Meg had missed all of it, everything important, everything petty, the entire universe of my new life. I hoped, for her sake, that she changed her mind and stayed in Argentina through the year, because I wouldn't know what to say to her if I saw her now. She didn't fit into my new life, she wasn't a part of it, and everything
was always moving forward; after all, the Earth rotated in the same direction every day, but there was no going back.

Another thought crossed my mind, and I knew it to be a rationalization for what I was about to do: I knew why Meg had waited an entire two months before e-mailing me. She had gone to Argentina carrying the hope that a year in Buenos Aires would transform her into someone who wouldn't need to send me e-mails anymore. I thought about how coolly she had told me about spending the year abroad, about the offhand tone in her voice when she said that things would be different between us from now on. She thought something better awaited her, or rather, that she would become better by being away from me. But that hadn't happened, and so I closed my laptop, telling myself that I could always respond later, telling myself that we were no different. Telling myself that if it were Meg in my place, she would have done the same.

“Want to go to Pizza Post for dinner? Go shower. I'll wait for you.”

Halle tilted her head to the side, her face transforming into a pouty plea. I was dumbfounded to find her waiting for me after swim practice in the locker room. I hung out with her every day in a group, but I had never spent time with her alone.

“Okay.” I nodded at her before heading to the showers.

“I'm so glad someone finally has the same schedule as me . . . you know . . . aside from Nick. Veronica doesn't do sports—like school sports. She's an equestrian, and Alexa . . . well, you know Alexa.” This was almost always how Alexa's eating
disorder was referred to, but everyone in the group knew about it. We were sitting in a booth at Pizza Post, our hair wet, our gym bags nestled beside us like small, loyal creatures.

The TV was on—a news report about one of the organizations that had formed in the aftermath of Terra Nova. This one was in Nevada.

“Ugh, such weirdos,” Halle said as she looked at a group of people in white shirts and black slacks being interviewed. “They even have uniforms.”

“If Washington continues to thumb their noses at us, we need to defend ourselves from their blatant abuses,” one of them said. “We're demanding a ratification of the Constitution. The people of New Terra Novia have a right to their own lands and their own sovereignty. We have a right to secede from the Union.”

“God, and we used to think Texas was full of secession-minded crazies,” Halle said. “These people . . . they're such total morons. I mean, what do you think it would take to just pack up your bags and join one of these cults?” Then she lowered her voice as though she was thinking about something. “I mean, how damaged would you have to be abandon your family?” she asked.

I thought about the note my mother had left in my bag and pretended I was still listening to the news report. Before I stopped talking to my mother, she told me about the organization she was joining. It was called Church of the New Earth and had been formed just after the discovery of Terra Nova.

“It's just a community of seekers—young and old. They're
from all over the country, all over the world, really. And they all have questions about Terra Nova. They're all trying to resolve something in their lives. I feel so lucky to be living in this time of spiritual awakening,” she said, just before I left the room.

Later that day, I did an Internet search on the organization. The people photographed for the website looked unusually cheerful and tan and appeared to spend their hours painting and hiking through the Santa Monica Mountains. I hadn't decided yet whether it was a cult or not. All I knew was that the fact they weren't in uniforms had given me a sense of relief, but now I was beginning to wonder if I was deluding myself about who or what they really were.

“Hey, I was wondering . . . what are you reading right now?” Halle changed the subject.

“In class, you mean?
Anna Karenina
.”

“No, I mean, that thing you do.” Halle giggled.

“What thing?” I asked.

“You're always sitting in class reading a novel under your desk, on your lap—I've seen you doing it for years. How do you even know what's going on when teachers call on you? You always have an answer.” I had no idea that anyone else knew I did this. I had tried to be discreet, but Halle had noticed. Still, she was wrong on one count.

“Not always. Sometimes I have no idea what the class discussion is about.”

“You're not missing out. But I've always wondered . . . why do you think you do that? Read all through class?”

I shrugged. “I just like to read, I guess.”

Halle squinted at me. “No, that's not it,” she said. And she was right. It wasn't. Books were like a shield. They protected me, kept me safely invisible. When I had a book in my hand, people left me alone. It was as though I could observe them at my own discretion, at a distance, but they couldn't see me. But I didn't say this to her.

“I mean, it's not like it's affected my grades or anything . . .”

She laughed now. “Yeah, that part I know. Treem keeps rubbing it in my face. The fact that you have the highest GPA in our class.”

“Me? She told me
you
had the highest GPA in our class.”

“Yeah, well, Treem's a moron.” Halle smiled.

“That's putting it lightly . . . I'm reading
Cat's Cradle
,” I told her.

“Isn't that on the AP English syllabus for later this semester?”

“Yeah, but sometimes I feel like class discussions ruin books for me. So I read them myself first.”

Halle grinned at me. “You're amazing, Krishnan,” she said. “And I love
Cat's Cradle
. My parents are like a karass. No, wait . . . a duprass. They're attached at the hip—they're, like, in Venice right now. What are your parents like?”

I hesitated, unsure of what I could say. “I don't know . . . They're just . . . parents, I guess,” I said, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. I thought about that day in the student center when Halle had mentioned my hairy legs, the way she was with Sarah Hoffstedt. There were things I would never divulge to
Halle, that I would never say to her. I still didn't trust her—or anyone in that crowd, for that matter.

“Yeah. I know what you mean,” she responded, looking away before she pulled her gym bag into her arms and rummaged through it. I wondered in that moment if she was hiding behind a shield too.

For the next couple of weeks, I walked around with a hollow in the pit of my stomach. I watched my mother make piles of things she was going to take to California. I watched her pack.

“Hey, wanna come keep me company?” she called from her bedroom whenever she saw me in the hallway. I ignored her, still believing that maybe it would all just go away. In the mornings, I left home without saying goodbye, and when I came home late, sometimes she was waiting up for me, a sad smile on her face.

“Looks like you're having fun with your new friends,” she'd say, or “I missed you today. How was school?” I looked at her blankly before I went to my room and fumed at her.

“She's delusional, Dad. You have to stop her,” I said to my father, but he just shook his head.

“I'm trying everything I can, Tara,” he told me. There was a sadness in his eyes I had never seen before.

And then a couple of days before Halloween, I realized that
I
was the one who was delusional. My mother had made up her mind. She was leaving to go to California.

The day of my mother's flight, I intentionally made plans to go to Nick's house after school to work on our egg-drop
project. By now, late October leaves were accumulating on sidewalks, patchwork pieces of red and orange waiting to be swept away by the wind.