Shuffle, Repeat (26 page)

I'm alone in the farmhouse, alone in my misery. Mom is on campus and all my friends are getting ready for prom tonight, so I play games on my phone for a while. But not Mythteries. I don't play that.

Somewhere around lunchtime, I try calling Dad. He doesn't answer and I don't leave a message, but I do shoot him a text.

hey dad, what's up?

Even though he didn't pick up when I called, he texts back right away.

hi beautiful. in rehearsal, new play, amazing role.

closes in july so def able to come out & help u move into dorms. what do u need for college?

I turn off my phone. I don't know what I need anymore.

Two long and boring and lonely hours later, I'm reconsidering my decision not to call Mom when I hear a familiar crunching coming from outside. It's accompanied by the low rumbling sound of an engine. Those two noises together can mean only one thing.

The behemoth.

I rush to the front door.

Except it's the wrong behemoth. This one isn't black; it's somewhere between beige and gold. And the person driving isn't Oliver. It's his mother, Marley.

Oliver's mom's white-blond hair is pulled into a high ponytail and she carries a giant designer bag. She's finally remembered to return some socks and pajamas she borrowed from Mom when she spent the night. “There's a book, too,” she tells me.

I smile and nod and reach for the bag, assuming she'll drop it and run, but instead, she pushes past me into the house. “Can I borrow a pen?” she asks. “And some paper?”

I follow Marley into the kitchen and provide her with writing implements. She scribbles a note to Mom and glances up at me. “Hannah says you're not going to prom tonight?”

“I'm not into it.”

“That must be a generational thing. Oliver is meeting some friends there, but he doesn't seem excited at all. I practically had to drag him to get a tux.”

I have a sudden, overwhelming surge of desire to
see
Oliver in his tuxedo. I can imagine how he'll look, all tall and blond and old-school movie star—

No. I mentally pack the image into a box labeled “Nice Try” and stash it away. Instead of thinking about Oliver, I reach out my hand to his mother and accept the note she gives me. Then I walk with her to the front door, where she thanks me. “Sorry to barge in unannounced.”

“No problem. Have a nice evening.”

I close the door and glance down at the note in my hand. It's not anything exciting.

Hannah—

Thanks for the read.

Still on for coffee Monday?

—Mar

But for some reason, I keep staring at the note. And staring at it. There's something about it. Not
what
it says, but
how
it says it. The neat, slanted handwriting.

I pound up the stairs and into my bedroom, where I rush to the bulletin board hanging on my wall. Holding Marley's note up to it, I compare.

I was right. Marley's handwriting is the same—like, the
exact
same—as the handwriting on my father's birthday card. The one that came with the flowers he sent me. The one I cling to when I'm lonely or sad or angry. The one that was supposedly transcribed by the local florist.

Local florist, my ass.

Marley Flagg wrote that card.

Marley has already backed down our driveway and pulled onto Callaway when I slam out the front door. The behemoth takes off. I know it's pointless to try to catch it, but I try anyway, racing down the driveway and into the street, waving my arms and screaming, “Mrs. Flagg! Wait!”

It's the only way I'm going to find out the truth.

I chase her for a couple houses' worth of road before slowing to a stop, my breath coming in short gasps. I'm not sure if it's sweat or tears covering my face….

And miraculously, ahead of me, the behemoth also stops. I drop my hands to my knees and try to catch my breath as the big car makes a slow U-turn and Oliver's mom comes back for me.

She's coming back with answers. Answers that I already know will break my heart.

“Did you write this?” It's the third time I've asked the question, but Marley still hasn't given me an actual answer. We're standing on the front porch and I'm waving the florist's card in the air.

“I'm calling your mom.” Marley dives a hand into her huge bag and scrabbles around in it.

“No.” I move to stand directly in front of her. “You owe me.”

“What do I owe you?” Marley says, not in a snotty way but like she's confused, like she has no idea what I'm talking about.

“I covered for you. I knew about your marriage problems for months and I didn't say anything to Oliver.”

“I appreciate that—”

“It ruined everything!” I'm getting more and more worked up with every passing second in which I am not given the simple courtesy of being told the truth. “You put me in a really bad position. Oliver is my friend and I should never have known more about his family than he did. That's messed up and it's not fair. It wasn't fair to me and it definitely wasn't fair to him, so please tell me the truth about why you faked that note from my dad. Enough, already!”

For a second, I think I've gone too far and Marley is going to yell at me, or tell on me, or ground me. But instead, she fixes those huge blue eyes on mine. “Oh, sweetie.”

“What? ‘Oh, sweetie' what?”

Marley steps closer. She reaches for my hand and I allow her to take it, because even though I'm mad, I'm also a little terrified of hearing whatever she's going to say next. “Your dad…” She stops and gives a little sigh. “Oh, honey, your dad is such a screwup.”

Words of denial and defense leap to exit my mouth, but I clamp my lips together hard and I keep them inside. I keep everything inside.

And I listen.

“It's not your fault,” Marley tells me. “It's not your mom's fault, either. Hell, it's probably not even
his
fault. It's just who he is—one of those guys who never sees what's right in front of him. He loves you, June. I believe that and so does Hannah. But your dad…he does the best he can. It's just that your mom's best is a lot better.” She squeezes my hand gently. “We had lunch together on your birthday, your mom and me. Your dad texted while we were in the restaurant, asking your mom to pick something up. Something for you.”

No. No-no-no-no-no.

“He had forgotten about your birthday until that morning.”

Until I sent him a picture of my decorated locker.

“Your mom said she'd take care of it, and we went to a florist for the prettiest bouquet we could find.”

Dad will visit. He'll visit. He said he would.

“I wrote the note so you wouldn't recognize your mom's handwriting.”

He's better than that. I need him to be better than that.

This time, I'm 100 percent sure the wetness on my face is not sweat.

“Come here, honey.” Marley pulls me into her arms. I let her rock me and stroke my hair before she pushes me back so she can stare into my face. “What can I do?”

“I want to go to the prom,” I tell her.

Marley and I are sitting awkwardly on the art gallery bench when Mom and Cash emerge from her office. The buttons on Mom's blouse are fastened wrong, and Cash's hair is a little wonky, which makes sense, because the door was locked when Marley tried the knob.

Cash gives me an apologetic look. “June—”

“It's better for me if we don't talk about it,” I tell him.

“It's better for me, too,” he says.

“Well, I think we
should
have a healthy discussion,” my mom chimes in.

“Hannah,” says Marley, but my mom doesn't notice.

“When two adults are in a relationship, it's natural to—”

“Hannah!” Marley says again, and this time my mother shuts up and listens. “We have a more pressing matter than your sex life. June wants to go to her prom, which starts in an hour and a half. She needs a dress, accessories, hair, and makeup. I told her we could make that happen.” My mother opens her mouth, but Marley raises a finger. “In other news, June knows about the flowers and how her dad's kind of a lovable loser—”

“Marley!”

I touch my mom's arm. “It's okay.”

“Put it on your maternal to-do list for future discussion,” Marley tells my mother. “Right now, we have one priority: to get June ready for her senior prom.”

I see my mother consider, weigh, decide.

“We should call Quinny.”

“On it,” says Marley. “She's bringing options. Next issue: transportation. Is it too late to rent a limo?”

“I can take her,” says Cash. “Nothing says ‘prom' like a pickup truck.”

“Actually,” says Marley, “Oliver is flying solo—”

“No!” It explodes out of my mouth like a bomb, and everyone stares at me. I collect myself. “I mean…that would be weird. You said he already has plans with his friends. Besides, I have an idea. Where's my phone?”

I am a frothy lavender milk shake standing atop a chair in the center of the gallery. Mom and Marley and Quinny whirl around me, plucking at and tweaking the tulle foaming from my waist. Fortunately (for him), Cash was sent out for burgers. “Enough!” I throw my hands in the air. “I don't think this is the one.”

“Next!” says Quinny, heading to the garment bags slung across the bench. Mom unzips the back of the milk shake dress and Marley starts tugging it down. Over the last hour, since Quinny arrived with the dresses, I've lost all sense of modesty. The lavender is the eighth one I've tried on. Or maybe the ninth. One was okay, but the rest were either too poofy or too big in the chest or something. Quinny is a costume designer for the university theater and has all kinds of interesting stuff. I'm just worried she doesn't have something that will both fit me and look like what a reasonable person might wear to a prom.

“This one,” says Mom. She's pulling a dress out of a bag. “Try it.”

Four minutes later, I'm in a strapless steel-blue circle dress straight out of the fifties.

The sexy part of the fifties, that is.

The dress dips low in the back, gathering at my waist before blooming out all around me in a ballerina skirt that stops right above my knees. The fabric is textured but not too shiny. “Bengaline,” Quinny tells me when I run a finger over it.

Best of all, she and Marley and Mom have somehow managed to rig an undergarment that hoists and maneuvers in such a manner that I actually appear to have boobs. It's perfect….

Except the dress doesn't quite fit me.

Quinny hands my mother a tiny green-handled instrument. “You rip. I'll sew.”

Next thing I know, my feet are back on the ground. Quinny pins the dress just as fast as Mom can rip stitches out of it. Marley brushes my hair and shushes Quinny, who keeps saying things like “Quit moving her” and “Hold still, Marls.”

When Mom and Quinny are done with the ripping and pinning, they help me wiggle out of the dress. I end up sitting on the bench in a crinoline and my T-shirt while Marley plays with my hair and, nearby, Mom hot-glues rhinestones to earring backs. “It's convenient having an entire art studio at our disposal,” she says.

I don't say anything.

I am mute with gratitude.

I stare at my own image looking back at me from my cell phone screen. I'm wearing the blue dress and peep-toe pumps on tall, slender heels. Sparkly earrings dangle from my lobes, which are visible because my hair has been swept into a glamorous updo. My eyes are lined and my lips are red. I'm a sleek, pinup version of myself.