Twisted Fate(16)

So anyway, Kim is home all day but she’s in her studio working and she has never once brought in the mail that I know of. So no one will know if I get packages or not. When I finish this project it will all make sense to everyone. Especially to me. I will understand things the way I couldn’t before.

Between “finding my calling,” as Dr. Adams would say, and working on the Austin Healey, I think life in Rockland is shaping up to be okay. And the neighbors! Beautiful Tate! I want to talk to her. I want to see her. I want to make her the star of all my films!!





We were baking muffins together, which I have to admit only happened when Syd was high and in a good mood and there wasn’t already a lot of junk food in the house. She’d convince me to make them and then we’d hang out in the kitchen. I guess it was one of the rare times we got along these days. And even though I didn’t like her getting high all the time she could be silly and fun to be around when it was just the two of us.

Anyway, so there we were at the counter and we saw him from the window.

“You going to invite your crush over?” Syd asked, grinning at me.

I shrugged but before I could say anything she had opened the kitchen window and was yelling. “Hey! Justin Bieber, you wanna hang out?”

He looked up and I tried to push my hair away from my face but my hands were all covered with flour and I got it in my hair and he started laughing.

“My sister has something for you,” she said, and then started laughing as well. Great, I thought, she’s going to be so stoned she’ll embarrass me. Like the time she thought it would be a good idea to invite Declan and Becky over for a dinner we made together and then before we could eat she insisted we listen to the same four lines of a song she liked over and over and over again. Because it was “so cool.”

But it was too late; Graham walked up the back steps and came right into the house.

“Looks like you’re having a fun time this afternoon,” he said. I could feel my face flush.

He took the mixing bowl and wooden spoon from my hands and started stirring. And I sat on the counter watching him.

Syd took the bowl from him, set it on the table, and became her usual bossy self. “Sit down,” she told him. “I want to read your palm.” She grabbed his hand and held it in her lap.

Syd of course did not know how to read palms at all. This was just the way she flirted with boys. If they were dumb, she read their palms; if they were smart, she’d challenge them to a game of anagrams.

“Or maybe you’d like to play anagrams instead?” I said to Graham. I never really got why they liked it—that game where you rearrange letters in a word. She and Declan played it all the time and it had them rolling on the ground laughing. By doing the palm-reading thing, she was telling me she thought Graham was dumb, but she was also getting to touch him, which I was sure she wanted. I sat down next to them.

“Oh, do you know how to play anagrams?” Syd said, stroking his palm lightly.

Graham said, “Ah . . . I kinda do, actually.”

“Okay, we’ll start with Eiffel Tower,” Syd said. “Go.”

He stared for a while and then asked for a piece of paper. She grinned a triumphant sort of grin and actually placed his hand into mine. Then she got up and sat on the counter, humming and mixing the batter, laughing to herself.

It felt good to hold his hand. It was wide and strong and his fingers were long and beautiful. I thought about him working on his car. “I don’t really know how to read palms,” I told him. “But I can tell we’re all going to be friends.” I looked up and smiled and he nodded, his face flushed. Now he really did look nervous, shy. I felt my stomach flutter.

“I better finish making these,” I said, going to the counter and taking the bowl out of Syd’s hand.

“You sure are an interesting girl,” he said, and his eyes were shiny, gleaming beneath the yellow kitchen lights as dusk fell outside.





I had just a few hits of the bowl on my way home with Declan and Becky and was suddenly feeling very in the mood for some sister time in the kitchen and I didn’t have to wait long. When I got home Ally was already standing at the counter, looking at a recipe book and twirling her long blond hair absently around her finger.

“Graham’s coming over,” she said. “I invited him over to make muffins with us.”

“Oooooh. You’re really making the moves on your crush,” I said.

“Stop it, Syd. He’s new here and we’re his neighbors and we should be nice to him.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “As long as you’re baking.”

I reached into the bowl of blueberries and ate a few and she slapped my hand playfully.

We watched Graham lope across the driveway into our backyard and up the steps and then he knocked.

“Hi!” Ally said, opening the door for him. I saw how he looked at her, that way some guys had where they were totally captivated by her homespun New England princess ways. And it made me smile. He looked like kind of a dork next to her, but he was also painfully good-looking.

“You wanna help mix the batter?” Ally asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Ah, could I use the bathroom for a minute?”

“I’ll show you where it is,” I told him. “You kinda got to go through a construction site. To get to it.” Ally looked up at me sharply. She didn’t like me saying anything negative about our house, but it was true, Dad’s tools were everywhere and I’d rather say it myself than hear someone else point it out.