This Is Me From Now On (11 page)

“Don't you just love it here?” Francesca said, looking up at the stars. We were on the beach, a few yards from the Pattison house, lying on a moth-eaten afghan that Aunt
Ponytail had crocheted. It was about two hours after we'd finished an enormous dinner of fried chicken, corn on the cob, biscuits, and raspberry pie, and my shorts still couldn't close at the top button.

“It's perfect,” I said truthfully. I looked up at the stars and started counting the ones on Orion's belt. Almost everything that had been freaking me out recently—the fight with Nisha and Lily, the smashed-up soda can business with Zane—seemed far away that night. And I knew we'd be making progress on the Attic Project that weekend, so I wasn't even stressed about that, for a change.

Francesca sighed. “I wish I could stay here forever.”

I stopped counting. “You mean like live here? And go to school?”

“Oh, forget about school. School is not the whole wide world. And neither is boring Blanton.” She rolled on her side and looked at me. “Evie, don't you ever think about bigger things?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don't know. Cosmos questions. Like whether the stars control our destiny. Or if everything in the universe is utterly random.”

“Everything?”

“Not
everything
, maybe. I mean the truly important things. Like love.”

I laughed. “Actually, Francesca, that kind of question never crosses my mind.”

“How tragic,” she said sympathetically. “Okay, so think about it now. Do you believe in soulmates?”

“Soulmates?”

“You know. Like Cathy and Heathcliff in
Wuthering Heights
.”

I shrugged. “I've never read that book, Francesca. I looked at it the other day, but it's just so … wordy.”

“Of course it's wordy. It's a
book,
” she said, laughing. Then she sat up and added casually, “Speaking of gorgeous words. Can I tell you this absolutely epic idea I had? Remember that letter you read on Espee's computer yesterday?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Well, Evie. What do you think would happen if Theo Rafferty actually received it? Don't you think it would be like this massive lightning bolt in their relationship? And then her life would change. Both of their lives. Happily ever after.”

“Francesca?” Now I sat up too. “What are you talking about?”

“I bet you anything she'd never send it to him. On her own. So then I started thinking: What if somebody else—”

The raspberry pie took a weird turn in my stomach. “Did what?”

“You know. Sent it to him somehow.”

I almost choked. “Are you psychotic? That's the worst idea I ever heard in my life!”

“What's wrong with it?”

“What's
wrong
? Well, for one thing, it's totally dishonest.”

“How is it dishonest? We wouldn't be making anything up. We'd just be sending along her exact words.”

“Which maybe she doesn't
want.
”

“Why wouldn't she? You think she's happy? All alone with her ice cream every night?”

I almost laughed. “First of all, you don't even know if she sent it herself. Maybe she e-mailed it.”

“Of course she didn't
e-mail
it. You don't
e-mail
someone a
love letter.
You write it on really beautiful stationery.”

“And, anyway, maybe she
hates
ice cream. Maybe she's
ecstatic
with her life.”

“Oh, please. You read what she wrote. ‘Cruel fate.' If she's truly so ecstatic, then why would she call it that?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “Besides, haven't you ever written some crazy, stupid thing you didn't want anybody to see?”

“No,” said Francesca. “Why would I? That would just be a bloody waste of time.” She plopped back down on the blanket. “Oh, never mind! It was just an idea I had. Forget I even mentioned it.”

“Gladly.”

“All right, then. Sorry.”

I sat there in the dark, listening to the waves crash.

“It's just that I feel so desperately
sorry
for Espee,” Francesca blurted out. “She's such a tragic person, don't you think? Stuck in that miserable little school, wearing those horrible pants. Assigning those deadly boring research papers to kids who think she's a witch.”

I shrugged. Then I poked my finger in the sand and started drawing nervous circles.

She reached across the blanket to touch my arm. “Evie, can I tell you something personal? I just feel sometimes as if I have this amazing
understanding
of things. It's like a gift I have, you know? To know what people truly want. And that makes me want to
help
them.”

“Francesca,” I said, trying to sound calm and normal and
in control. “This is really not about your so-called psychic powers.”

“Don't say ‘so-called.' That sounds as if you don't believe me!”

“I'm not saying that. It's just incredibly not the
point.
”

She frowned. “Okay, you're angry. Please, please, please don't be.”

“Just promise me you won't send Espee's love note.”

“If you insist,” she said, pretending to laugh. “Are we okay now?”

“I guess.”

“Well, lovely, then.” All of a sudden she got up from the blanket and ran into the beach house.

For a few minutes I sat there shivering, looking up at the stars. But it made no sense to stay out on the beach all by myself, so finally I got up, brushed the sand off my legs, and followed her inside.

The next morning at breakfast, Francesca shocked me again.

“Yarrr,” Quentin said as he squirted maple syrup on a stack of French toast. “Shiver me timbers. I challenge ye guys to a second sea battle. This very morn.”

“We can't,” Francesca said impatiently. “We're busy.”

“We are?” I glanced quickly at Quentin. In the morning light you could see that he had fuzz on his upper lip. And a tan under the freckles on his cheeks, and wavy brownish hair. He wasn't Zane-level cute, but he wasn't deformed, either. And he was nice. And also
not
immature, whatever Francesca meant by that, anyway.

Francesca grabbed a box of Corn Flakes from the messy counter and poured herself a huge bowl. “Well, obviously, Evie. We have all that research for the Attic Project. You're going to read those books and I'm going to investigate Angelica.”

“You mean you'll be doing homework
all day
?” Quentin hooted. “Then what was the point of coming here, Frankie?”

“So I can interview my relatives,” she answered seriously.

I watched Francesca dump almost a full pint of blueberries over her Corn Flakes, and I thought:
What exactly is going on here? Why does she suddenly care so much about the Attic Project? Is it because last night I freaked out when she talked about the love letter? Well, maybe it's okay that I freaked out. That's not such a terrible thing, actually.

“You know what?” I said enthusiastically. “We can take the earthquake books down to the beach. As long as we don't get them sandy.”

Francesca nodded. Her hair fell into her cereal bowl, and she didn't even push it back.

After breakfast we put on our dampish bathing suits and walked down to the ocean, lugging a blanket, the earthquake
books, and also our Spush spiral notebooks. We spread the blanket carefully, then each took a book from the pile and started reading. My hands were greasy from sunscreen, but I managed to grip my pen tightly and take pages and pages of fascinating notes, all about San Francisco life right before the earthquake hit. And I even managed to tune out Quentin and Timmy, who were boogie boarding nearby and yelling, “Avast, ye scurvy dogs,” and other dorky pirate expressions.

The whole time, Francesca hardly said a word. She just kept reading her book, once in a while writing in her spiral notebook. Considering how long it had taken for her to focus on our project, I didn't exactly want to interrupt her. But after an hour or so the un-Francesca silence was really starting to get to me.

“So,” I said finally, “do you know if Angelica lived on Nob Hill?”

“What?” She looked up.

“A ton of mansions were destroyed on Nob Hill,” I said, pointing to a photo in my book. “You said she lived in a mansion. Do you know the address?”

“No, I don't,” she said, frowning. “I'll ask my relatives about that after lunch.”

“We don't have to do this the entire day, you know.”

“Oh, I know.” She squinted toward the sparkling ocean. “Okay if I go for a swim?”

“Of course! You don't need my permission!”

“I wasn't asking,” she said, her face breaking into a grin. “I was just being disgustingly polite.”

I grinned back at her. Whatever weird feeling was left over from last night was suddenly gone now, and I was glad. I watched her jog into the ocean and tackle Timmy from behind. Then I opened her spiral notebook, just to take a quick peek. This is what she'd been writing:

“Hey there, scalawag,” said a teasing voice. “Making progress?”

Horrified, I shut the notebook. “Hi, Quentin. Yes, we are.”

“Cool. Then come battle.”

I nodded. “In a minute. Can I ask you something first?”

“Sure.” He squatted on the blanket and looked at me curiously.

“Um, maybe it's none of my business,” I said. “But do you know why Francesca was kicked out of that other school?”

“Not really. Something about a paper she wrote. Or didn't write, I forget which. Frankie's never been much of a student. Even though she's been to a ton of schools.”

“She has? Why?”

“Well, she's kind of lived all over.” He shaded his eyes, and we both watched Francesca lift Timmy out of the water and then toss him back in, squealing. “I never heard the whole story from my mom. But Frankie's family
is unbelievably messed up, that's all I
do
know.”

“You mean her mom?”

“Both of them. Her dad's, like, totally obsessed with his job and making money, even though they're seriously loaded. And her mom's like,
Frankie who? You mean I have a daughter somewhere?
And now she's living with Aunt Sam, who's pretty much off in her own world.”

“Hey, Samantha's okay,” I argued, thinking about the amazing way she sang in the car. She still seemed to me kind of silly and poofy, but she was also obviously incredibly talented. And really, how could you memorize all those sad, painful songs without having a sensitive heart?

I suddenly realized Quentin was staring at me.

“Yeah, I guess she's cool,” he was saying. “But not the parent type, maybe. Anyway, Frankie has a best friend now, so everybody's happy.” He grabbed my arm and starting dragging me into the ocean. “Come on, Evie. I challenge thee to a rematch sea battle, thou miserable lowly wench.”

“Angelica who?” Aunt Yellowteeth demanded as she passed the potato salad.

“Beaumont,” Francesca answered. “Great-grandma Isabel's big sister.”

“Isabel had a sister?”

“Oh, you remember, Beebee. Teddy's aunt. The socialite suffragette,” Aunt Ponytail said, winking.

“And we're doing a big research project about the 1906 earthquake,” I said excitedly. “So Francesca wrote Isabel—”

“Where?” Uncle Sunburnt interrupted. “At the old address?”

“At the
usual
address,” Francesca said. “The one I visited last Easter. Why? Is there a different one?”

“Since early June,” Aunt Ponytail said, passing me an enormous plate of hot seashells. “Isabel moved to a nursing home, a very nice one in Sacramento. Evie, don't you want any steamers?”

“No thanks,” I said politely.

“Evie only eats veggie burgers,” Francesca said, not looking at me. “So who's living in her house now? Great-uncle Teddy?”

“No, he never settles in any place for too long. But I believe he's trying to sell it.”

“Well, good luck to Teddy,” Uncle Sunburnt snorted. “Nobody will want that creaky old thing. The energy bills alone—”

I nudged Francesca. “But your great-uncle can still get the diary, right?”

“What diary?” Quentin demanded.

Timmy started singing. “Quentin said diarrhea, Quentin said—”

“I did
not,
” Quentin said, giving Timmy a noogie. “I said
diary,
you little doof. And Evie said it first.” He grinned at me.

Francesca smiled. “Angelica kept a diary during the San Francisco Earthquake,” she explained. “Teddy told me all about it.”

I almost choked on my potato salad. “He
told
you? You mean you never actually
read
it?”

“Not personally,” she answered, calmly spreading a gigantic blob of butter on her roll. “But Teddy says it's fascinating.”

“I'll bet.” Uncle Big Belly grinned. “Wasn't she the one with all those husbands?”

“Never mind,” said Aunt Yellowteeth.

“And that secret affair with the married movie star—”

“Gib. The girls aren't asking about that.”

“Oh yes, we are!” Francesca insisted. “We want to hear all the juicy details. Don't we, Evie?”

I didn't answer. I poked my potato salad with my fork.