Good as Dead(19)

I felt pretty good about my tryout. I wasn’t in my best shape, and had lost some strength over the summer, but I still did the 100 m in less than fifteen seconds and the 300 m in under fifty, which is pretty good for an incoming junior. I could tell the coach was impressed with my competitiveness, which—unlike my weight—wasn’t affected by a month of crying and crowding into my mom’s hospital bed.

“You’re fast for a white girl,” the cute boy said, checking out my legs as I shook them out.

“Oh, gee, that’s not racist,” I shot back, pretending not to be impressed by the shock of black hair that lilted gently over eyes so blue it was like looking at the sky.

“What’s your name?” he asked, and I paused to check him out.

“Why, you want to join my fan club?” I asked. I may not have had any dates, but I’d rehearsed how to get one many times.

“Definitely,” he said, like he meant it. So I told him.

“Savannah Kendrick.” I spoke my name like I was important. “And yes, I’m new around here, if that was your next question.”

“Hello, Savannah. I’m Logan. And I’m new around here, too,” he said, offering his hand. Then he asked, “You a junior?”

I nodded, then asked him, “What about you?”

“Graduated last spring,” he replied, “but not from here.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “So what, you’re some sort of stalker?”

He tilted his head back when he laughed, revealing flawless, straight white teeth. “Couldn’t be president of your fan club if I didn’t stalk you,” he joked. “I’m taking a year off before I start college. I was the captain of my track team. I’m going to be your assistant coach. But only on a volunteer basis. So I can’t get fired for wanting to go out with you.”

The flirtation was so direct it caught me off guard. I was sure I blushed. And I was sure he saw.

“Is this you, Savannah Kendrick?” he asked, showing me his phone where he had found my Instagram account.

“Yeah,” I said, suddenly self-conscious about this hot guy seeing my stupid posts. I cursed myself and hoped he wouldn’t scroll through them until after I had weeded out the embarrassing ones.

“OK,” he said as he clicked, “I’m now officially stalking you.” And he flashed a smile that made me blush all the way to the backs of my ears.

“Lucky me,” I sassed him back. I hoped I sounded sarcastic. Even though that’s not how I felt at all.





LIBBY


Three months ago

The bathroom faucet broke off in my hand.

Fortunately, it happened when I was trying to turn the water on, not off, so I didn’t get drenched. Unfortunately, I urgently needed running water, because my face was plastered with a sea-salt-and-avocado exfoliating and firming mask, which was already dry and pulling my mouth apart like a sad iguana.

I went to the powder room, turned on the faucet (carefully), and rinsed off the mask. As I blotted my cheeks, I noticed the shiny foil wallpaper was starting to curl up just above the baseboard. We had intended to change that wallpaper right after we moved in. But we were too busy. And then we were too broke.

I tried not to bitch about never having enough money—my husband was depressed enough. He was spending every waking minute in his woodshop–man cave, which meant he didn’t want to face his feelings or me. He said no one told him why that meeting that was supposed to “change our lives” got canceled—not that it mattered, he wouldn’t have believed them anyway. They don’t tell you the truth about anything, he had said. They just say whatever makes them not look like assholes.

I imagined it was hard going from being a reporter whose job was to hunt down facts, to an aspiring screenwriter denied even the most basic ones. But something about this business had him hooked. He had been so hyped about his meeting, practicing his pitches in the mirror, in the shower, in the car on our way to game night. He even dressed up for the meeting—which he never does—in the flat-front trousers I had bought him at Banana Republic and one of his few shirts that doesn’t have an ’80s rock band on it. I hadn’t seen him that excited since the day Clooney wrote him the check that became the down payment to this house. As evidenced by the state of our bathrooms, that was a long time ago.

I flicked at the wallpaper, then contemplated tamping it down with a glue stick. I suddenly laughed out loud at what my life had become. I had a PhD in psychology from Columbia, and was once a well-paid professional. A move cross-country and two kids later, my job was now keeping house, maintaining my rapidly deteriorating looks, and supporting my husband’s dream of becoming a Hollywood hotshot.

I had a complicated relationship with my life. I loved California and this neighborhood, but to look like I belonged here took a massive amount of effort. I did what I could at home, with DIY face masks and drugstore waxing kits, but some professional help was still required to fend off the assault of Father Time. And we couldn’t afford it.

I found a glue stick in Tatum’s room. I glued the wallpaper down and rolled it smooth with the tube. If only fixing the wrinkles on my face were so easy, I thought. Just dab some sticky goo on them and roll them out. If I could invent such a thing, I’d be a millionaire! At that point it seemed as likely a path to wealth as my husband selling another screenplay.