Lucky Caller(46)

I couldn’t help but smile, and Sasha smiled back.

“He helped me hold the light so it was steady. He was there whenever I needed him for the rest of the night, and the rest of the weekend too—said he’d be standing by just in case.”

It was quiet.

“I know this whole … event thing is kind of risky,” she continued as we neared the World Lit room. “And I don’t like that. I don’t like messing up. But if it can help Jamie with his grandma’s charity thing, then that’s something, right?”

“Is doing a bad thing for a good reason still bad?”

Sasha shrugged. “Probably depends on the circumstances.” A smile. “Here’s hoping not?”





40.


SASHA AND I ENDED UP hanging out over spring break. One afternoon we met at the mall uptown and walked around, tried on some deep discount clothes that were clearly discounted for a reason, got overpriced frozen yogurt.

Sasha was really easy to talk to, easy to be around. I told her about Rose and Sidney, about Mom and the impending marriage. I heard about her friends on the volleyball team. Her brother Quincy, who was ten. Her potential volleyball scholarships—she had been recruited by a few schools, and had just committed to Notre Dame.

“That’s really cool,” I said, stabbing a strawberry with my spoon. “Must feel good.”

“Mm,” she replied.

“What?”

“No, it does. Definitely. But it’s also kind of scary?”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Makes it real, I guess. The stakes seem way higher. I love playing, but now it’s like, I won’t just be playing ’cause I love it, I’ll be playing to stay in school. I just hope it doesn’t put too much pressure on it.” She took a bite of yogurt, then a smile crept across her face. “You know like how it’s easy to flirt with someone if you don’t actually care, but as soon as you get feelings, suddenly it’s the hardest thing in the world?”

“Can’t relate,” I said. “I never flirt with anyone.”

“No, whatever you and Jamie got going on kind of transcends flirting,” she replied, giving me a look before going in for another bite of yogurt.

“What? We don’t—what?”

“Come on. There’s a little something there.”

“No.”

“A liiiiittle something.”

“Sasha.”

“Just a teeny, tiny, little itty bitty—”

“We kissed one time.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I knew it! When? Where? Was it at school? Was it at the studio?”

“Ages ago,” I said. “In junior high. It’s over and done. He would never—” I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

“But—”

“I want to look for some sneakers.” I didn’t have the budget for sneakers—most of what I was earning at Pipers was going into the Dantist’s Camera Repair Fund. But Sasha didn’t need to know that. “Should we get moving?”

“Yeah, okay.” It looked like there was more she wanted to say, but she didn’t press further.



* * *



When I got home that evening, I could hear Rose’s voice coming from our bedroom and increasing in volume. I could only make out snippets—“didn’t want to make it a big thing” and “wasn’t hiding anything” and “kidding me right now?”

“What’s going on?” I said to Sidney, who was curled up on the couch watching TV.

“Rose might lose her scholarship,” she said. “She got a thing from school. Mom found out, and they had a fight, and Rose told Dad, and now they’re having a fight.”

I moved into the hallway. Mom’s bedroom door was shut, but the door to our room was slightly ajar. When I pushed it open, I could see Rose standing by the window, her back to me. She didn’t turn around, her phone pressed to her ear, her posture tense.

“Yeah, I am,” she was saying. “Because I—no, listen—because you think, like, a ten-minute phone call every week gives you the right to suddenly parent us. When you’ve never done the job of actually being a parent. You only want to chime in when it’s convenient for you. You know, when we were kids, if something was wrong, if we needed help, we’d go to Mom, do you realize that? If we were sick on your weekend, we’d stay with her. Because you didn’t want to deal with it, and because we knew deep down that she would take care of us, that you couldn’t even—listen to me—you’re not even listening to me!”

She lowered the phone abruptly and hung up. When she turned around and saw me, her expression went hard.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said.

“Hear what?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you’re gonna say.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“You’re literally talking right now.”

Arguing with Rose in this moment was absolutely unproductive and I knew it. And yet … “So I can’t speak out loud? Is it okay if I think really hard?”

“Nina, I swear to god—”

Mom’s door opened then, and she stepped into the hall, noticed me there. “Ah, you’re home.”