The Space Between Us (12 page)

Ezra clearly thought we were freaks, but so what? Charly
was
a freak. And the two of us flying across the continent to move in with a complete stranger like we were
part of the witness protection program or something—that was freakish.

“He’s kind of cute,” Charly said. She was still sideways on the couch, face-planted in throw pillows. “You should go for him. He has that same serious, never-say-what-I’m-thinking thing as you. You guys would be perfect together. You could just sit around being broody together.”

“Not funny.”

“Oh, come on. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you followed him out to the car and—”

“Shut up!”

“Jeez. Cranky.”

I wandered over to the tight spiral staircase and started up.

“Dibs on the better bed,” she called after me.

“Dibs on somebody else’s life.”

The “loft-let” was the size of a closet. The furniture consisted of a double bed, a tall, skinny dresser pushed up next to it, and a card table masquerading as a desk in the corner. There was a tiny window, so it wasn’t quite the same as a prison cell. But close.

Ezra had wedged the two suitcases in the space between the foot of the bed and the overlook, which was just tall enough to hide me from view unless I was standing right next to it.

I dropped my backpack on the bed and leaned over the
wall. “Hey,” I called down to Charly. “Good news. We’re sharing a bed.”

Charly didn’t look up. She’d picked up another book of artwork and was busy thumbing through. “My bladder wants to sleep closest to the stairs.”

I pulled off my sweater and fell backward onto the white duvet. At least the mattress was soft.

“Are these okay here?”

Ezra’s voice brought me to a sitting position. I hadn’t even heard him come in, but he was at the foot of the bed, piling the suitcases next to the other two.

“Fine. Whatever.” Where else were they going to fit?

“Well, I should be going, then.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

He nodded, then stared at me for a second too long.

“Good-bye,” I said, lifting my eyebrows.

Ezra turned and went back downstairs. I listened to him say good night to Charly and leave before I let myself fall back into the bed.

Alone.
I’d been dying to be by myself all day, and now that Charly and I were sharing a room, not just a room but a bed, this was as close to it as I was going to get. I was just starting to float away when Charly’s voice from below startled me awake.

“Why were you such a jerk to him?”

“I wasn’t,” I called back. “And why do you care, anyway?”

“It’s embarrassing when you do that.”

“Embarrassing?
I
embarrass
you
?”

Silence.

“Because last time I checked, you were the one who was knocked up with a complete stranger’s baby.”

Dead silence.

Hands shaking, I pulled off my jeans and socks, wriggled out of my bra, and climbed into bed in just my shirt and underwear. My heart thumped against my rib cage and my throat ached. This air was too thin and too dry for my lungs to hold on to.

I was supposed to call Grandma. She’d be worried if I didn’t let her know we’d gotten here safely, but I was too tired to get out of bed and I couldn’t be in the same room as Charly right now. Besides, I couldn’t just call from Bree’s home phone without asking her first. Grandma deserved to worry a little.

And I deserved a good cry, but now that I was actually alone, the tears wouldn’t come. Instead I hugged my knees to my chest and felt the blood pulse through me. I closed my eyes and pictured the lights at Savannah’s party, muggy nights in the black walnut tree, Dad’s warm hand on my shoulder, Will’s deep-set blue eyes. The last noise I remembered was the refrigerator door opening and closing. Of course Charly would be helping herself to Bree’s food, uninvited.

Then sleep pulled me down.

• • •

I woke up to the
Wicked
soundtrack and the smell of sizzling pork fat. It wasn’t the CD (that I’d heard a million times, thank you, Charly), but a live duet of
What Is This Feeling?
accompanied by pot clanging. Ah yes, the song about roommates hating each other. Appropriate.

I opened my eyes and a beam of white sunlight drilled a hole into my eyeball. I groaned and rolled over. One tiny window, what were the chances?

I pulled the duvet over my head, which blocked the light but only muffled their voices. Decision time. I could go downstairs, or fake sleep until Broadway musical hour was over. On the one hand, the singing was too loud to sleep through and could go on forever, but on the other hand, I had no place down there. Bonding with the lost aunt over bacon and show tunes—that was Charly’s scene.

Except I was starving.

I swung my legs out of bed and looked around me. My jeans were on the floor, so I grabbed them and put them on. The left side of the bed was still tucked in. Charly must have slept on the couch.

The singing broke off below. “Pass me your plate, babe.”

Babe?
Bree’s voice was husky—not low, but just scratchy enough to be grating.

I glanced at my reflection in the oval mirror over the dresser. Pale skin, colorless lips, dull brown hair, mascara wells under my eyes—this was going to be a great first impression. I looked like a junkie.

“Can I have that syrup?” Charly sounded awfully chipper for someone who hated mornings, someone pissed off enough to sleep on the couch rather than share a bed with me.

“This is the real deal,” Bree said. “Canadian maple syrup. One taste and you’ll never go back to Aunt Jemima.”

I took the double-helix staircase slowly, looking up only when I got to the bottom. Both had their backs to me, Charly at the island stuffing her face and Bree at the stove, still nattering about syrup. She had white-blond hair cut pixie-short, and a black rose tattoo on the nape of her neck. From behind I could see she had one of those dainty cartoon frames: curvy hips, tiny waist, and mysteriously, no shoulders. I could probably bench-press her.

Neither noticed me until I reached the bottom and Bree turned around, pancake on a spatula.

“Amelia!” she squealed, and tossed the pancake onto Charly’s plate. She was instantly across the room and on me, squeezing the air out of me. “You’re
beautiful
!”

“Thank you.” That was maybe arguable on a good day, and definitely not true as of one minute ago when I’d looked in the mirror. I returned the hug and waited for her
to let go. She took her time. Awkward. It didn’t help that she was short enough for me to rest my chin on top of her head. Her hair product smelled like coconut.

“No, really, you’re gorgeous!” she said, pulling back.

Again, awkward. I tried to smile.

“Your hair is so dark—nothing like your mom’s. I don’t really remember your dad, but you must look like him.”

“That’s what people say.”

She kept examining my face from close up, so my only option was staring right back. She had round eyes spaced just a little too far apart, a tiny diamond stud in her nose, and a silver lip ring. It’s hard enough not to stare at people’s piercings from a normal distance, but from six inches? Impossible. The nose stud was incredibly sparkly.

She put her hands on her hips. “You’re too skinny. Do you eat?”

What was that supposed to mean? She was the one who was the size of a twelve-year-old. “Of course I eat.”

“Good, have some pancakes. And bacon.”

I took the stool beside Charly. Bree shoveled a full piglet’s worth of bacon onto my plate. “Um. Sure.”

“So Charly and I were just having a little
Wicked
sing-along.”

“I heard.”

“You’ve got some pipes, girl,” she said, dumping more
pancakes onto Charly’s plate, then mine. “Do you sing too?”

“No.” Whatever I was doing in choir, I was pretty sure it didn’t count as singing. Credit earned, transcript diversified, rejected anyway. “Charly got the singing genes.”

“Me too. I sing in a band, actually. It’s punk. We mostly do covers of 80s music, but sometimes we do show tunes too. Wild mix, eh?”

I chewed on my bacon.

“What’s your band’s name?” Charly asked.

“The Pedestrians. We play at McSorley’s about once a week, on a night when I’m not behind the bar. Usually Thursdays. Hey, I know.” Bree turned to Charly and waved the spatula at her. “You should sing with us sometime.”

Charly’s eyes grew to golf ball size. “Really?” she whispered.

“Of course!”

I pictured Charly on stage in an acid-washed jean miniskirt with pink hair, a giant pregnant belly hanging out under a halter top. Classy.

Bree poured coffee into two mugs and brought them over to us. “So you didn’t call your grandma last night.”

She wasn’t looking at me, but it felt like she was. “Yeah,” I said. “I was just so tired, I totally forgot. And I don’t think Charly is supposed to drink coffee. What with . . . you know.”

“Oh. My bad.” She pulled the mug away from Charly, who glared at me. I didn’t actually know if it was bad for the baby, but I really didn’t need her any peppier.

“She called this morning at five to make sure you guys were alive. She must’ve forgot about the two-hour time difference.”

“Yeah,” I said. Probably not. “Sorry.”

“I told her you guys would call her when you got up.” Bree took the phone off the counter and held it out to Charly.

“Nope,” Charly said, hands up, staring at the phone like it was a gun. “That’s Amelia’s job.”

“Why is that my job?”

“Because Grandma doesn’t want to talk to me.”

It was hard to disagree with that.

“Well, just as long as one of you calls her,” Bree said, sweetly but not that sweetly.

“After breakfast,” I said.

She put the phone beside my mug. It felt like a threat.

“So Ezra stopped by McSorley’s after he dropped you guys off last night,” she said. “That boy is such a sweetheart.”

Sweetheart? He’d seemed more like a big, domesticated primate.

“He said you guys might need some winter gear, and
that you could stop by and dig through the lost and found at Lake Louise if you want. That stuff can be really expensive, and you only need it for one season.”

“Nice,” Charly said.

I wasn’t going to argue. I didn’t know exactly what
really expensive
meant, but I did know that money was tight at home. Grandma’s lecture about interest rates and responsible spending had been completely unnecessary. Did she really think I was going to run out and buy a two-thousand-dollar pair of moccasins with her credit card? Charly maybe, me no. The thought of blowing a ton of money on ugly snow gear made me cringe.

I’d just assumed that we could get by on the bare minimum. But the shock of last night, of how the cold had felt like a thousand teeth taking a thousand bites out of my skin—that changed things.

“His older brother, Quinn, and I used to, you know . . . ” Bree swirled the bottle of syrup around high up in the air, drizzling a squiggly crosshatch pattern onto her own pancakes. It was all very bartender-ly. Charly looked completely mesmerized, like she’d never realized syrup could be so beautiful.

“But that was forever ago,” Bree said.

I waited, hoping talk about boyfriends past would lead to talk of boyfriends present, specifically, who Richard was, and whether or not he was going to show up and walk
around like he owned the place. But Bree transitioned to clothes instead.

“I’m guessing you’ll need more than you can scrape together from the lost and found, though.”

“We did bring clothes,” I said, hearing the defensive edge to my voice after it was too late.

“Oh, of course! I didn’t mean you didn’t have clothes. I just thought I could help you get a few things you might not already have. Like some good boots, and a few pairs of long johns. I found these silk ones at Mountain Equipment Co-op last winter that have seriously changed my life.”

I nibbled on a piece of bacon, wishing it wasn’t so chewy. She wanted to
help
us get a few things? “Help” was a little ambiguous. Was she talking about buying us stuff, or was she talking about dragging us to the store and maxing out Grandma’s credit card?

“Sounds good to me,” Charly said, mopping up the syrup with her last bite of pancake. “We nearly froze to death last night.”

“It’ll be my little welcome gift to you guys.” Bree smiled and the lip ring gleamed. “What do you say?” she asked, putting a hand on my arm.

I say you’re trying too hard.
“Sure. Thanks.”

She squealed and Charly squealed and I almost squealed for solidarity.

“How about you guys get ready and then we head into Calgary to shop? That way you’ll be all set for starting school on Monday. We can stop by the Alberta Healthcare Office to get your ID numbers so we can make an appointment for Charly. Are you guys going to need school supplies too?”

“Charly’s not going to school,” I said. “She’s got her stuff for the online classes she’s doing, and I brought school supplies.”

“Well . . . ” Bree’s voice trailed off. When she picked up again, her voice was bright and shiny like cheap fabric. “Actually, I thought maybe we should talk about that.”

I turned to face her, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Charly. “I mean, I know your grandma wants you to do the correspondence class thing, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It just seems like you’re going to miss out on the whole semester.”

Charly stared at Bree, eyes wide and innocent.

“So I enrolled you both.”

“What?”
I sputtered.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she said, ignoring me. “I just thought I’d give you the option. They don’t make pregnant girls stay at home here.”

“They don’t
make
pregnant girls stay at home in Florida either,” I said. “She’s choosing to do online classes for one semester.”

Finally, Bree turned to me. “I just want to make sure that’s what
Charly
is choosing to do.”

So I was the bad guy.

I put my fork down, so gently it only made the softest
clink
. She wasn’t getting the satisfaction of seeing me mad. I looked at the floor and waited for Charly to jump in and defend me. She owed me that. She knew I hadn’t bullied her into staying home.