twenty-nine

“I’M SURE IT WON’T BE AS GOOD as the pizza you get in Los Angeles.”

Molly accepted a warm, greasy bag from the kid behind the counter at Slice of Eden. She vaguely recognized him from freshman comp class, but the name tag on his T-shirt—Eddy—didn’t ring a bell.

“You’re thinking of New York,” she said, pushing a twenty across the counter.

Eddy snorted. “Don’t patronize me.”

Molly stood there for a second, crumpling the waxen white paper sack in her fist, before turning and heading back out to her car. Los Angeles had felt so far removed from her hometown that she’d forgotten everyone in West Cairo was as capable of keeping an eye on her tabloid shenanigans as the kids at Colby-Randall. And it was clear they’d not only paid attention but taken sides.

No one had confronted her, exactly. But when she filled up her car at the Shell an hour ago, Bonnie Turner—who had always had a crush on Danny—whispered loudly to her friend, “I guess they ran her cheating ass out of town.” Her taxi driver from the airport wanted to know why Brick hadn’t provided her with a private jet. Even at baggage claim, she saw a twelve-year-old clutching Hey! and shooting Molly a murderous look. In L.A., Molly was just a blip, a meaningless respite between stories about legitimately famous people. But in tiny West Cairo, she was That Assy Girl Who Thinks She’s So Famous but Is Actually a Disloyal Bitch. The local Osco Drug would probably have TEAM DANNY T-shirts by next week. And Molly couldn’t really blame them. If she weren’t That Assy Girl, she’d probably hate herself, too.

She nibbled on a garlic breadstick in the driver’s seat of her grandparents’ Honda, which smelled musty and airless from being parked for so long in the garage. Ginger and Miltie were still on their trip around the world—their last postcard hailed from Istanbul—so she’d had to dig the spare key out from under a potted hydrangea plant to let herself into the house. It was cold and empty without them, metaphorically and literally, since they’d turned out their pilot light before leaving town.

Molly started the car and pulled into the street, navigating her way up to the town’s main park, a large oasis set against a tree-lined ridge. She and Danny had hiked up there in ninth grade and found a rock outcropping that formed a de facto bench from which you could see most of Main Street. They used to eat lunch there on Sundays.

Danny’s truck was already in Pyramid Park’s dirt lot. Dread tickled Molly’s skin as she slowly made her way up the rough, untended slope flanking the park, left at the crooked tree onto which she and Danny had once carved their names, and out into the clearing. Danny’s back was to Molly, but he’d clearly heard her coming, because he stood up in a hurry from his spot on the rock. He was bleary-eyed and his plaid shirt had what looked like syrup on the pocket, but otherwise—and in fact, in those ways, too—he was the same old Danny.

His opening salvo was, “Are we breaking up or what?”

“Wow, that was direct.”

“So was this,” he said, pulling out a copy of Hey! and throwing it onto the ground. His yearbook photo grinned back up at them, juxtaposed with the intimate photo of her and Teddy leaning against her locker. Molly kicked it to a different page. Better to stare at a story about the hot new Hollywood diet pill—horse tranquilizers from Mexico—than at that picture.

“I am so sorry,” she said. “I never, ever wanted you to get dragged into any of this.”

“Is it true?” he asked, sitting down again. “Are you dumping me for some Hollywood poser with an expensive haircut?”

She unrolled the crumpled bag and handed him a piece of pizza.

“Teddy’s not a poser,” Molly hedged, joining him on the rock. “And the details are totally wrong. Nothing actually happened.”

“This doesn’t look like nothing.”

“In L.A. nothing is ever what it looks like,” she said. “He’s my friend. We fought, and we were making up. That’s all.”

“So you’re home. What now? Are you coming back to Mellencamp? Because if you are, maybe we—”

His face was hopeful. Molly could feel the sad, sympathetic expression arranging itself on her face as she shook her head.

“So, it’s over?” Danny asked, but he didn’t sound as angry as she thought he might. “Definitively?”

Molly took a deep, quavery breath. “Definitively,” she said. “If it was supposed to work, I think it would have, and we both know it didn’t.”

She promptly burst into tears. Danny looped his arm around her shoulder.

“Oh, Molls, stop crying,” he muttered. “Honestly, it’s not like we didn’t break up three times while you were here.”

Molly let out a half sob, half laugh. “You really deserved the one before this. Late to Homecoming because of a Colts game? Come on.”

“It’s called fan loyalty, Molly,” Danny said with mock seriousness. “So, tell me about this guy. You like him, right? I can tell. I’ve known you long enough.”

Molly looked down at her Converse. The hole that had been brewing her entire stay in Southern California was about to blossom. The metaphor annoyed her.

“Yeah,” she finally admitted. “I think I do. I’m sorry. But I swear it didn’t hit me until after things with us got weird.”

“Well, that was my bad. I shouldn’t have avoided you,” he said. “But my best friend and my girlfriend was suddenly gone, and long-distance was so hard, and I just didn’t want to deal. It felt like too much.”

“I used to think I hated change, too,” Molly said. “Now I’m not so sure. I tried going there without changing anything here, and look how well that worked.”

Danny sighed. “But we didn’t even make it through a semester, Molls,” he said. “That’s embarrassing.”

“Well, it was kind of easy to stay together when I could skip your swim team parties, or you could skip my movie night, and we knew we’d just hang out some other time,” she said. “But we’re only sixteen. We shouldn’t just do the easy thing all the time.”

“Wow, you’re so wise now,” Danny teased.

“I don’t feel wise. I feel really dumb.”

“About what?”

“Everything. For being in denial about what might happen to us. For leaving L.A. without telling anyone. Maybe even going to L.A. in the first place. It’s like I’ve become a totally irrational person since my mom died, and now everything is a mess.”

“You’ve been through a lot. I don’t think anything you did was really that irrational.” Danny shrugged. “Except breaking up with me, of course. I just broke forty seconds on a keg stand last weekend. I’m a hot commodity.”

They laughed as Molly wiped her eyes. “I don’t know what to do next,” she admitted. “I can’t imagine going back to Mellencamp, but I’m not sure I can stomach going back to L.A.”

“Was it really all that bad? Is one stupid story that’s eighty percent true—”

“Thirty percent true.”

“—sixty percent true, really worth giving up everything you left here for?”

Molly fiddled with the crust of her pizza, then tossed it back into the bag. When she was in L.A., it seemed like getting back to Indiana was going to solve all of her problems. But simply being in a different time zone than Brooke and Brick didn’t mean they ceased to exist. As if to rub it in, the billboard Molly could see off to the east, over the toll road on-ramp, was an ad for the Rad Man collectors’ edition DVD.

“Brooke swore she never meant to leak that photo, but, I mean, how is that even possible?” she asked.

“Dude, I hit the damn Send shortcut in Gmail all the time by accident,” Danny pointed out. “One day my sister got about ten half-finished messages from me about how if she tells our parents I use chewing tobacco I’m going to show them where she keeps her condoms.”

Molly thought about this. “She did seem upset, but I guess I didn’t want to hear it.”

She stared down at the park and the town below it. Two kids were playing on the swings, jumping off when they got to the highest point in their arc. A cop was ticketing a car that was parked in a red zone. With a half smile, she thought about the dress rehearsal for My Fair Lady, where Brooke tried to convince her she could park in a handicapped spot because her Christian Siriano boots had given her horrible blisters.

“Maybe you should call her,” Danny suggested. “I mean, you don’t want to end up like your mom, making confessions on your deathbed because you never got around to telling people what they needed to hear.”

“That’s exactly what she would have said,” Molly said softly.

Danny tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to a spot about twenty yards to their right. “Check it out.”

A sunflower was growing on a tangled, unkempt corner of the plateau, alone and wilting.

“I would pick it for you, but…” Danny let his voice trail off.

“It’s seen better days,” Molly said.

“Yeah, I’d say it’s near the end of its life cycle.”

They traded smiles, sad ones. Finally, Danny stood up and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“I think that’s as good a sign as any that I should go,” he said.

“I understand,” she said. “Thanks, Danny. For going easy on me. For everything. You’ll always be one of my best friends. You know that, right?”

Danny nodded. “You, too,” he said. “Good luck, Molls. Don’t be a stranger.”

Then he loped off down the hill. Molly had watched him walk away from this spot many times in her life, but this was the first time that it felt like he was really leaving her.

But it was okay. It felt, finally, like a step forward. Their conversation had lifted some of the weight off her shoulders, but in her heart she knew it was somebody else that she had come back to see.

Molly ran a hand against the curved top of the granite stone poking out of lush green grass. LAUREL DIX, BELOVED MOTHER, DAUGHTER, AND FRIEND, it read, and underneath the inscription were two quotes. One was from Joni Mitchell: I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM… BUT LIFE IS FOR LEARNING. The other was a snippet of Thoreau that read, LIVE THE LIFE YOU’VE ALWAYS IMAGINED. So many words. Typical Laurel.

Kneeling down, Molly nestled a bunch of snapdragons against the headstone.

“Well, Mom, I guess that didn’t work out the way you thought.”

“No kidding.”

Molly turned around to see Charmaine walking toward her, two cans of Diet Coke in her hand.

“I thought I might find you here,” she said, handing one to Molly. “Of course, I already looked at your house, and Starbucks, and Danny’s. And briefly at Old Navy. Turns out you weren’t in the two-for-twelve-dollars tank top pile.”

“Danny and I broke up. Finally,” Molly said.

“So he told me just now,” Charmaine said, sitting down on the grave next to Molly. “Hi, Laurel,” she yelled into the grass. “I’m feeding Molly all-natural organic carrot juice!”

“It’s bad luck to lie to the dead,” Molly said. “Also, if she can hear you, I bet she can see you.”

“Eh, she’ll appreciate the effort,” Charmaine said. “How are you feeling?”

Molly grimaced and cracked open her can of soda. “I don’t know. Tired. I feel like I spent the last few months running away from everything, and then I turned around and ran away again.”

“Well, you were all-state in cross-country.”

“Do you think I was wrong to come back?” Molly asked.

Charmaine plucked a blade of grass and twirled it in her fingers. She held it up to her mouth and a piercing whistle sailed through the cemetery. This was one of her favorite tricks. Molly had missed it.

“Listen, Molly, I don’t know what it was like out there, because I wasn’t with you,” Charmaine said. “But that tabloid story was pretty much a stone-cold bitch move from Brooke, so I get why you left.”

“All I could think about was how much easier everything would have been if I’d never left Indiana.”

“Hardly,” Charmaine said. “It would have been exactly the same. Danny still would’ve been the Mellencamp keg-stand champion. You’d still have had to deal with people coming up to you in the produce department and bursting into tears over the oranges. It might not have been any different, but it wouldn’t have been easy, either.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Do you really think Brooke did it on purpose?”

“Now that I’ve had some time to process it, I’m not so sure,” Molly admitted. “I did accidentally do something similar to her, so… Yeah. She might be telling the truth.”

Charmaine looked up at the sky, as if for inspiration. “Okay,” she finally said. “Do you want me to be supportive here? Or do you need Get-a-Grip Friend?”

“Get-a-Grip Friend,” Molly said. “Please.”

“Okay. Well, siblings fight,” Charmaine said. “All the time. It’s just a fact. And, yeah, this is a pretty big fight, but you of all people should know how important it is to appreciate your family while they’re still around. Also, you can’t just keep bouncing back and forth from West Cairo to L.A. like a Ping-Pong ball every time something goes wrong. This is your life. Don’t live it in limbo with one foot here and one foot there. Pick a city and deal.”

Molly was silent for a spell. “Dude,” she said. “That was a good Get-a-Grip speech.”

“I practiced it in the car.” Charmaine grinned. “I also had a whole thing about how committing to L.A. means breaking up with Danny, but you beat me to it.”

“So you think I should go back?” Molly asked.

Charmaine sighed.

“I don’t want you to go back,” she said, after a long swig of her soda. “I miss you. But I also know that you and I are going to be fine no matter what. You just need to figure out what it really means to you to be a Berlin, because you are one, whether you like it or not. And I say, go be one. If you’re here, you never really will be.” She crossed her arms smugly. “Also, if you go back one more time, you’ll probably have racked up enough frequent flyer miles to buy me a free ticket to L.A. I’m just saying.”

Molly laughed. “Nice to see you’re unbiased.”

“I just want to see Brick’s Viking bust in person,” Charmaine said. “But I also think you already know everything I told you, and you’re just scared to lose your safety net. Which I get. But if it were me, I’d say it’s worth another shot.”

Molly pondered this. It was true that, when things in Los Angeles were at their most cinematically cruddy, it had always been comforting to think she could just head back to the plains. But she hadn’t been thinking about running away the whole time she was there. In fact, before she’d seen Hey!, Molly had honestly been… happy. Brooke’s vivaciousness was entertaining—when she was using it in the service of good, anyway. Brick’s warmth and welcome had been genuine, if scattershot. And then there was Max. And Stan. And Teddy. Teddy.

“Don’t just go back for the guy, though,” Charmaine said, as if she’d read Molly’s mind. “He’s cute and everything, but I think we all learned from what happened to Bobbie Jean on Lust for Life that making a decision based on a boy is hardly ever a good idea.”

“I really don’t think Teddy is going to give me a face transplant.”

Charmaine rolled her eyes. “Bobbie Jean would’ve appreciated the advice.”

Molly laughed, resting her palms against the grass and leaning back until her shoulders shrugged up to her ears, her fingers twining with the grass on Laurel’s grave as if they were holding hands. She could stay here, with Charmaine and the ghost of Laurel and small pieces of Danny, but also with the stigma of being the girl who came crawling back because she couldn’t handle Hollywood. Or she could go back and face down Brooke, Brick, and the shark tank of Colby-Randall Preparatory School, and do it better this time. There was a certain injustice in having to suck it up and go back to them with her tail between her legs, but maybe that was a part of growing up that she needed to learn—a punishment for not facing her problems head-on, the way she should have. If Laurel’s death was going to teach her something, maybe it was to never leave a question unanswered, or a fight unfought.

Molly stood up and brushed the grass off her jeans.

“Where are you going?” Charmaine asked, looking up at her.

“I think I have a phone call to make,” Molly said.

She bent down and hugged Charmaine, squeezing her cheek to her friend’s head.

“Thank you for being my other sister,” she said. “And for having the guts to tell me to get over it.”

“No problem,” Charmaine said. “Besides, in the movies, everyone loves the Get-a-Grip Friend. Now get out of here and go pack. Again.”

The sun peeked through the clouds for the first time that day. Molly tipped her head back and closed her eyes against the light. It felt like validation from her mother that she was, at last, doing the right thing.

“A family is what you make of it,” Laurel had said two days before she died, her knitting needles churning out one final scarf.

And it was time to make something real out of hers. It was time to go back to Bel Air, back to the Berlins, and make it right. For good.