What's Broken Between Us (7 page)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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“
W
hat are you doing home?” My mother greets me in the entryway when I get home from school, wearing heels and a gray dress. Her hair is curled and pinned back, and her makeup is done.

“Open seventh,” I remind her, since typically at this time she’s in her room, presumably napping—a habit she developed after Jonathan’s arrest, when the days suddenly became too long for her. I set my backpack under the side table, and she picks it up.

“Upstairs,” she demands, thrusting it at me.

The doorbell rings, and Jonathan rushes past me down the stairs. He’s in a light-blue button- down, khakis, and brown dress
shoes. And his clothes fit.

Mumsy pats the back of her hair, straightens the bottom of her skirt. When she opens the door, she greets the person on the other side with her friendliest smile.

“You must be Gary. Please, come in.” She even sounds cheerful. “I’m Angela, Jonathan’s mother.”

Jonathan stalls at the bottom of the stairs but eventually steps forward and shakes hands with the man standing in the foyer, murmuring, “Nice to see you again.” He’s a younger guy—midtwenties maybe, though his red hair is already thinning on top. I don’t know what else to do when he looks up at me standing there, staring, so I give him an awkward wave. He waves back.

“Oh,” my mother says, letting out a high, bubbly laugh. “That’s my daughter, Amanda. She’s a senior with a lot of free periods, so that’s why she’s home so early from school.”

The man extends his hand to me. There are an awkward couple of seconds as I walk down to meet him, then have to move my backpack to my left hand so my right hand is free to shake his.

“Gary,” he says. My handshake isn’t nearly as sturdy as his. “You’re his sister? It’d be good for you to join us, then.”

“Okay.” I glance to Mumsy, and she gives me a nod as though she supports this idea. The tight lines of her smile suggest otherwise.

I follow behind them into the living room and take a seat on the couch next to Jonathan. Gary and my mother sit across from us in wingback chairs. Gary crosses his legs and pulls a clipboard
out of his messenger bag.

“This is Jonathan’s probation officer,” Mumsy says to me, her voice turning pleasant.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” Gary flips to the third page on his clipboard. He scratches the place on his head that will probably go bald first as he explains the terms of Jonathan’s probation, reading directly off the paper, not once looking up.

“There’s one matter we should get out of the way right now.” Gary reaches into his messenger bag. He pulls out a plastic cup with a red lid and sets it on the coffee table in front of Jonathan.

“Urine, semen, or blood?” Of all the times for Jonathan to start making jokes again—what is he thinking? I close my eyes, wishing it wasn’t totally inappropriate for me to elbow Jonathan in the ribs.

Gary starts to say “Urine,” but notes that Jonathan is smirking, and gives a close-lipped smile. “For the EtG test, to test for ethanol . . . to determine if alcohol is present in your . . .” He watches as Jonathan leaves, looking concerned, like maybe he’s not completely convinced that Jonathan’s going to bring back what he’s supposed to.

We all sit there, my mother locking her hand around her crossed legs and giving us a smile that’s nowhere near genuine, Gary fumbling with his clipboard pages. I find myself nodding to the quiet.

“Have you been doing this long?” is the question my mother chooses to break the silence.

“No, ma’am.” He looks up for a beat before hunching farther
over his clipboard.

“How long?” she asks.

“Actually,” he says, straightening up, “now would be a good time for you to share your transportation plan.”

“Our transportation plan—oh, you mean, since Jonathan can’t—his license is . . . Yes, yes, of course. I’m free to drive him during the day, and both his father and I are available in the evenings.”

I raise my hand. “And I can take him on the weekends.” I stifle a giggle, wishing Jonathan were here, since he would probably find this comment, paired with my raised hand, as silly as I do.

“There’s no reason Jonathan shouldn’t travel independently.” Gary pulls transit schedules from his bag and sets them on the coffee table.

“Of course.” My mother looks out the window. I catch her doing one of her yoga breaths, deep in, slowly out.

Jonathan comes back, and I have never been so happy to see him, even standing there holding his own urine.

Gary hands Jonathan packets of paper and several pamphlets and proceeds to ask a lot of questions about things like Jonathan’s daily routine and what he likes to do in his free time. Jonathan’s answers consist of a variety of
I don’t know
s and
haven’t thought about it
s.

“Will you be enforcing a curfew?” Gary asks my mother.

She smiles, stalling, and finally settles on, “Ten p.m.”

Gary writes this down, and my mother inspects his
expressionless face for signs that she’s answered correctly.

“Please list the names of friends you’ll be keeping in touch with regularly.” Gary turns to Jonathan, his legs crossed to balance the clipboard and his hand ready to write.

“No one,” Jonathan says without hesitation.

Gary stares frozen with his pen hovering over the clipboard, like he’s waiting for more—a punch line, probably—before he scribbles down the answer.

He clears his throat and proceeds, asking about Jonathan’s plans for community service.

“Can’t I just pick up garbage off the side of the road like the rest of the delinquents?” is Jonathan’s charming response.

Mumsy is quick in her attempt to distract from this one. “What did you have in mind, Gary?”

“Well—” He flips back a page or two. “A nonprofit called Chicago Cares was hoping you would speak about your experience this last year, about your incarceration . . . and about the incident that landed you in prison. They’ll be dropping in on local high schools. They’d like for you to join them. Share your story.”

Jonathan back at Garfield High. The thought of it makes my heart race. My mother’s hands are choking each other.

Jonathan squints. “Are you kidding?”

Gary looks at his notebook again, shaking his head. “No, I think—”

“I’ve already shared my story,” Jonathan says, leaning forward. “With
everyone
.”

“The organization is more than aware of . . . your past with public speaking.”

This description makes Mumsy’s eyebrows twitch against the Botox.

“Listen,” Gary says, more to his clipboard than to anyone else, “this is a great opportunity for community service, as required by your probation, with a reputable organization that has been a strong supporter of drunk-driving awareness campaigns. I would recommend taking advantage of it.”

Jonathan leans back, crosses his arms. There’s no way he’ll agree to this, I think—I hope.

After a few seconds of quiet, Gary continues, reading again from what’s in front of him. “Have you given any thought to your future plans? There’s a note here that you might reenroll in—”

“We’ll take all your suggestions under advisement,” Jonathan interrupts.

My mother perks up, noting she’s part of what Jonathan meant by
we’ll
. I’ve seen Jonathan do this before—group people with him, create sides. His side always won, so most of the time, it was a good thing to be recruited by Jonathan. Graduation night, he’d done it.
We’ve got places to go, people to see, champagne to pop.
An arm around Sutton. A wink fired at Grace.

“I need to know how you’ll be structuring your days out of federal custody,” Gary says.

“We’re still considering options,” Mumsy says. “He hasn’t even been home a week.”

Gary nods at Jonathan. “Lots to think about. You’ll let me
know next time. This meeting was a home visit, but next time it’ll be at my office. Do you need the address—”

“I know where to find you,” Jonathan says, waving one of the packets Gary gave him during the meeting.

Mumsy takes this cue and stands, so Jonathan and I do, too. I feel bad when Gary notices how ready we are for him to leave and rushes to put his coat on, tucking the clipboard under his arm instead of bothering to fit it back in his bag. He almost forgets Jonathan’s urine on the coffee table and has to double back to get it. He probably has a special ice chest, minus the ice, filled with urine sitting on the floor of his car. He probably has to stare into the eyes of several hardened criminals every day, ask them for their pee, and spend the remaining twenty minutes nagging them with advice on how to
not
wind up back in prison. Hopefully some of them see him for the advocate he’s trying to be—the way Jonathan should have.

“One more thing,” Gary says. My mother’s holding the door open for him, and he’s just two steps from the doormat. “Here.” He sets down his messenger bag so he has a free hand, then fishes around in the side pocket of his messenger bag and presents Jonathan with a pamphlet. “I recommend going as a sort of therapy, a way to keep yourself in check. Even when you’re feeling good and in control, it can help.”

Jonathan makes no effort to take the pamphlet from him, so Gary sets it on the edge of the side table, where it teeters and falls.

I catch it. It’s a brochure for Alcoholics Anonymous, listing all the meetings in the area.

“Thank you.” It comes out of me like a reflex. It’s a relief when Gary smiles.

Mumsy flaps her hand up and down at him quickly. It’s less of a farewell and more like she’s rushing him out. Before getting in his car, he looks back at us once more—the waving family with the icy eyes.

“I’ll see what we can do about getting you someone else,” my mother says, patting Jonathan on the shoulder as she passes him on her way to the kitchen.

“Thanks,” he tells her, his brow furrowed.

“Does it really matter?” I ask. “Aren’t they all the same?”

“One who doesn’t have stupid ideas about community service and actually
cares
about what I’m going to have to deal with the next ten years would be nice.” He’s already unbuttoning his dress shirt, already headed up the stairs to shut himself away.

“You know, it’s easier to care about you when you’re not an asshole,” I call to his back.

I hear the door to his room shut. I’m about to rush up the stairs after him, try for some answers as to why he was such a dick to his probation officer, but I see my mother leaning against the counter, looking at me incredulously. The same way she was looking at Gary.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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O
n Tuesday Graham claims he has radar for when I’m upset. But really, the hallway gossip has told him.

“Maybe you can switch partners?” he says, giving my hand an extra squeeze.

“It’s for one assignment,” I say. “I’ll live.”

The rumors have said otherwise: Henry and I were forced to be partners, even though we both asked the teacher to change who we were paired with. Henry’s my partner to gain intel about Jonathan, like a spy whose sole mission is sending Jonathan back to jail. Some are closer to the truth: Henry’s only my partner because he feels bad for yelling at me at the homecoming after-party. Either way, Graham is very concerned.

He pulls me in for a hug, and I make sure to count to five in my head before I let go. I kiss him fast on the lips, the only way we’ll ever be caught kissing in public, because we’re both embarrassed by PDA, and head off to my sixth-period class to face Henry.

Or ignore him. Which is what I plan to do. In fact, I’ve spent the entire day convincing myself Henry and I can do this entire measly assignment of interviewing a local business owner without really interacting with each other. We’ll show up at Ludwig’s Doughnuts—the business we’ve been assigned—and sit side by side wearing smiles, one of us asking the questions while the other takes down the answers.

I’ve got the laptop in front of me. Just a quick finalization of the interview questions and I’ll be ready to go.

But Henry taps his pen next to my finger on the keyboard, this was always the most annoying way he invaded my personal space to get my attention.

“It’s kind of funny,” he says.

I don’t take my eyes off the computer, and I continue to type. Henry should be happy that I’ve taken the administrative part of the project under my wing. He could spend this time catching up on homework or playing solitaire or napping, for all I care. “I doubt that, but go ahead and tell me anyway.”

“We both hate doughnuts.”

It’s true. We prefer savory breakfast food, a fact we learned the night we thought we’d be waking up to have breakfast together.

I try to pretend he doesn’t faze me and keep my fingers moving, but the letters popping up on the screen do not form words.

“You spelled ‘doughnut’ wrong,” Henry says, looking over my shoulder. “There’s no
p
.”

Carefully, I remove my hands from the keyboard. “I could use a break,” I say, sliding the laptop onto his desk. “You take over.”

“Amanda—”

With a quick glance to the clock, I realize that Dawn has just gotten out of class. I slide my cell into my back pocket, get up from my desk, snatch the pass from the front of the room, and power walk down the hall.

I’m a few yards from the bathroom when I hear my name.
Amander.

Henry jogs to catch up with me.

“Hey, where are you going?” he says, stepping in front of me.

I nod in the direction of the restroom. “There was no need to chase after me.”

“Mr. Scott thought I’d upset you and sent me to apologize.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, you did leave in a bit of a huff.”

“I did not.”

“Look,” he says, “to me it’s perfectly clear there’s nothing wrong and that I did nothing to ‘upset’ you. But Mr. Scott thinks you’re distressed and that it’s because of me, so will you please come back to class and straighten this out?”

“That’s so unnecessary—”

“Was it the mere mention of doughnuts that troubled you?”

“Henry.”

“I mean, I know you prefer your morning sugar intake via lattes, but I’m sure the owner of Ludwig’s won’t be offended when neither of us orders—”

“I’m not upset!”

He eyes me. “Of course not.”

“I didn’t leave in a huff; I just
left
. People have to stop pinning anger on me.” There’s no way to shake him off. I just want to be standing in the bathroom listening to Dawn rant about bio, imagining what it’ll be like when I’m there with her and far, far away from here, and all this.

“In Mr. Scott’s defense, remember eighth grade, language arts. . . .”

That’s right. Before Mr. Scott started teaching sophomore English and senior Consumer Economics, he was at Millbrook Middle School. I remember the fight, clear as day. Henry stole the poem I’d written for class—he’d ripped one of my earlier drafts from my notebook when I wasn’t looking, and as soon as Mr. Scott asked for volunteers to share theirs, Henry raised his hand. I turned seven shades of pink as Henry read my poor attempt at rhyming in an ode to Miguel Lowery—the boy that everyone had a crush on in eighth grade—to the entire class. If the class had known it was my poem, making the Miguel connection would have been easy, as not many other eighth-grade boys were tall enough to “reach the stars” or had hair that was both “as long as the Mississippi River” and “the color of ravens.”
But no one laughed. Go figure, my lame poem spun with a British accent actually sounded profound.

“It’s about being homesick,” someone guessed.

“It’s about being left behind.”

“It’s about his dead grandfather.”

Grace was in the class too. “It’s a love poem about a dude,” she said, and grinned with delight, given how much of a fuss all the
girls
in our class made over Henry.

I walked up to Mr. Scott’s desk first thing when class was over, in what I suppose some might call a huff, and demanded that Henry apologize to me in front of the whole class for taking credit for my poem. It turned out that the only thing worse than everyone finding out about my crush on Miguel was Henry taking the credit for a poem everyone actually liked.

The next day Henry said he was sorry, admitted to his crime, and read aloud his own poem, which was without a doubt about soccer and nothing deeper. Grace was visibly disappointed by this revelation.

It’s all storm clouds between us in the hallway now, with thunder too loud to talk over. Because we both remember Grace sitting there with her arms crossed over her desk, her shoulders rolling forward as she sighed, listening to Henry’s confession. “We can go back,” I say, and my voices breaks a bit.

“I’ll go,” Henry says. “I’ll tell him you’re fine, it’s all cleared up, and that you’ll be returning soon.”

“It’s okay. I only left to call Dawn. I can do it later.”

We walk back to class slowly. He stays to the right side of the
hall and I stay to the left.

T
EXT MESSAGE TO
D
AWN, NEVER SENT,
T
UESDAY, 8:30 P.M.

She was there, and now she’s not. She played tetherball at recess, I played tag. But she was there. She was on the volleyball team, I ran track. We were both in choir; she sang alto, I was a soprano. She was at ragers on Saturday nights. I was with you, most likely at the movies. But around seven at night, when we were getting ready to leave the house, stocking up on candy from the stash Mumsy thought was a secret, and Jonathan and Sutton were rounding up Jose, Jim, and Jack, she was there.