The House in the Pines(54)

* * *



— Summer is fading, the light tinted orange, and for the first time in a while, it isn’t too hot out as Maya parks on the street in front of Aubrey’s duplex. It’s late enough that most of the birds have gone quiet, but a single mockingbird sings in the hemlock out front.

Aubrey is knitting again on her porch, bare feet kicked up on the wooden railing. She wears cutoff shorts and a D.A.R.E. shirt, not dressed yet for the concert, but then again Maya is early.

“Hey,” she says. The porch creaks as she crosses it and sits in the other plastic patio chair.

“Hey,” Aubrey says. She puts down her knitting. She’s still working on the scarf she began the day they went to Wahconah Falls, the day Maya learned that Aubrey knitted. Now the scarf is almost finished, and its pattern is apparent. Stripes of lime green and viridian.

“Pretty colors,” Maya says.

“Glad you like them.” Aubrey relaxes into a genuine smile. “This is for you. A going-away present.”

And, once again, Maya thinks she might cry. She has carried Frank’s words with her all day, each one a heavy stone she takes as punishment, because the truth is she has been jealous of Aubrey’s beauty, and although she hadn’t realized it, not until Frank pointed it out, a small part of Maya had looked down on her choice to stay in Pittsfield. “Wow,” she breathes. “Thank you. I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole these past two weeks.”

Aubrey is quiet. “I don’t know about asshole, but yeah, you’ve been kind of a jerk.” Her tone is light. She swigs from a can of orange soda on the plastic table, then offers some to Maya, who accepts it gratefully.

I mean, is there anyone you’re loyal to?

“But,” Aubrey says, “it’s not like I’ve been the world’s best friend either.”

It’s true, Maya thinks—but then, a bigger part of her understood from the start that this is just Aubrey’s way. She hasn’t had other long-term friends. And isn’t it easier to say goodbye to someone you can’t wait to get away from?

“So, yeah,” Aubrey says. “Me too. Sorry.”

Their apologies hang between them. Maya doesn’t even consider bringing up the red dress.

Aubrey snorts out a laugh. “We’re such jerks.”

Maya laughs too, and the laughter builds until there isn’t any awkwardness left.

Aubrey’s little brother, Eric, wanders home as the sun sets, clutching a set of cards. “Hey,” he says, dawdling on the porch. He looks up to his teenage sister and knows he could be shooed away at any second. “Guess what?” he says. “I got my Charizard back!”

“No way!” Aubrey says. “Way to go, dude.”

Eric beams and shows them a Pokémon card, a little orange monster on its front. Maya’s known him since he was six, blue eyes wide with curiosity at whatever his cool big sister and her friend were up to. Maya used to think he was annoying, but now she has an urge to hug him. “Nice!” she says about the card.

“There’s mac ’n’ cheese on the stove,” Aubrey says.

“What are you guys doing?” he asks.

“Just talking, Smalls. Go inside and eat.”

He looks disappointed but does as she says.

Maya’s about to tell her about Frank when Aubrey says, “I decided to apply to LSU. Not this year, obviously, but next.”

“What? Oh my god!”

“I know!”

“Why LSU?”

Aubrey thinks Louisiana is cool, all the bayous and Spanish moss and Mardi Gras in New Orleans. She wants to catch beads at a rowdy parade. The other reason is that she has a scheme to pay in-state tuition. “My mom has a cousin, Justina,” she says, “who lives in Lafayette, and as of today, I get all my mail at her house. Next month I’ll visit so I can register to vote there and sign up for a library card. I’ve also been checking Craigslist for a onetime temp job I can do while I’m there, stuffing envelopes or something, so I can establish a work history.”

“You think that’ll work?”

Aubrey looks hopeful. “Maybe?”

“I bet you’ll get in.”

“They have a high acceptance rate. Seventy-five percent or something. Still have to figure out what I want to study.”

“That’s okay, a lot of people don’t know going in.”

“You do.”

Maya shrugs. She would, of course, be an English major so she could study the magical realists as her father had and go on to become the renowned writer he should have been. “You write poetry,” she says. “Maybe you could do creative writing too?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of psychology. I’ve always been interested in why people do what they do. Then there’s philosophy . . . I honestly don’t know anything about that, but I want to, you know? Feels like something I’d like.”

“Definitely,” Maya says. “You’re so philosophical.”

Aubrey smiles, happier than she’s looked all summer. “And,” she adds offhandedly, “just in case I don’t get into LSU, I’ll also apply to UMass Amherst, UMass Lowell, and, um . . . BU.”

Maya rushes in to prop up her best friend’s pride—Aubrey would hate anyone, even Maya, to think that she was following them. “Good idea—but I’m totally sure you’ll end up at LSU. And it’ll be amazing and I’ll come visit you and—”