Little Fires Everywhere(97)

Moody sputtered and pulled at Trip’s arm and Trip, finally, let him go and stormed off. After half an hour of aimless driving, he headed to Dan Simon’s house. In the days before Pearl, he and Dan and some of their hockey teammates had spent hours hunched around Dan’s Nintendo playing GoldenEye, and this afternoon he hoped that video-game haze would distract him from what Moody had said, from wondering if it was true. Moody, meanwhile, headed to Horseshoe Lake, where he thought about all the things he wished he’d said to his brother, today and over all the years.

Izzy, home alone, turned Mia’s words over and over in her head. Sometimes you need to start over from scratch. At five, Mia had not yet arrived to prepare dinner, and an uneasy feeling grew in the pit of her stomach. It only intensified when her mother called at five thirty. “Mia can’t come today,” she said. “I’ll pick up some Chinese food on the way home.” When Moody finally came home, at a little past six, she ran downstairs.

“Where is everyone?” she demanded.

Moody shrugged off his flannel shirt and tossed it onto the couch. He had sat at the lake for hours, throwing rocks into the water, thinking about Pearl and his brother. Look what you did to her, he thought furiously. How could you put her through that? He had thrown every rock he could find and it was still not enough. “How would I know,” he said to Izzy. “Lexie’s probably over at Serena’s. Who knows where the fuck Trip is.” He stopped. “What do you care? I thought you liked being alone.”

“I was looking for Pearl. Have you seen her?”

“Saw her in English.” Moody went into the kitchen to get a soda, with Izzy trailing after him. “Not since then. She left class early.” He took a swig.

“Maybe she’s with Trip?” Izzy suggested. Moody swallowed and paused. Izzy, noticing that he did not contradict her, pressed her advantage. “Is that true, what you said last night about Pearl and Trip?”

“Apparently.”

“Why did you tell Mom?”

“I didn’t think it was a secret.” Moody set the can down on the counter. “It’s not like they were subtle about it. And it’s not my job to lie for them.”

“Mom said—” Izzy hesitated. “Mom said Pearl had an abortion?”

“That’s what she said.”

“Pearl didn’t have an abortion.”

“How would you know?”

“Because.” Izzy couldn’t explain, but she was sure she was right about this. Trip and Pearl—that she could believe. She had seen Pearl watching Trip for months, like a mouse watching a cat, longing to be eaten. But Pearl, pregnant? She thought back. Had Pearl seemed unusual at all?

Izzy froze. She remembered the day she’d gone to Mia’s and Lexie had been there. What had Lexie said? That she’d come over to see Pearl, that Pearl was helping her with an essay. Lexie, usually so coiffed, was disheveled and wan, hair in a limp ponytail, and Mia had been so quick to shoo Izzy away. She thought back further. Lexie, coming home the next afternoon in Pearl’s favorite green T-shirt, the one with John Lennon on the front. In one hand she’d clutched a plastic bag with something inside it. She’d stayed in her room all evening, skipping dinner—again, unlike Lexie, who had an appetite—and had been in a sour mood for weeks afterward. Even now, Izzy thought, her sister seemed less effervescent, less gregarious, as if a damper had been closed. And she and Brian had broken up.

“Where’s Lexie?” she said again.

“I told you. I think she’s at Serena’s.” Moody grabbed Izzy’s arm. “Keep your mouth shut about Trip and Pearl, okay? I don’t think she knows.”

“You are such a fucking idiot.” Izzy shook herself free. “Pearl wasn’t pregnant. You realize Mom and her mom are probably going to kill her, and you threw her under the bus for no reason?”

Moody blanched, but only for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t care. She deserved it.”

“She deserved it?” Izzy stared.

“She was sneaking around with Trip. Trip, of all people, Izzy. She didn’t even care that—” He stopped, as if he had pressed too hard on a fresh bruise. “Look, she decided to sleep around. She deserves whatever she gets.”

“I cannot believe you.” Izzy had never seen her brother act this way. Moody, who had always been the most thoughtful person in her family; Moody, who had always taken her side even if she chose not to take his advice. Moody, the person in her family she’d always trusted to see things more clearly than she could.

“You realize,” she said, “that Mom is probably going to blame Mia for all of this.”

Moody shifted. “Well,” he said, “maybe she should have kept a closer eye on her daughter. Maybe she should have raised her to be more responsible.”

He reached for his can of soda, but Izzy got it first. The cold metal smashed into his cheekbone, and a spray of fizz and froth hit him squarely in the face. By the time he could see again, Izzy was gone, and he was alone, except for the can rolling slowly away across the wet kitchen tile.




Serena’s house was on Shaker Boulevard, by the middle school, nearly two miles away. Forty minutes later, Serena answered the doorbell to find Izzy, breathless, on the front steps.