Hadley & Grace(8)

Hadley feels Vanessa rolling her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Blah, blah, blah. Skipper needs to be watched. Skipper can’t be left on his own. I’ve got it. You’ve repeated it like ten billion times. Stop worrying.”

But Hadley can’t stop worrying. As much as Hadley loves her sister, responsible and reliable are not Vanessa’s strong suits, and taking care of Skipper isn’t easy. It requires constant vigilance and care. Handing him over to Vanessa feels a little like handing a live grenade to a known sufferer of seizures. It is a very bad idea, and Hadley very badly wishes she could somehow stop it from happening.

“I’m calling because I forgot to tell you Skipper’s passport came the day before we left, so we’re all set,” Vanessa goes on. “He’s so cute. Looks just like me.”

“Modest,” Hadley says.

“Modest is for people who don’t know how great they are.”

The statement is pure Vanessa. Hadley’s dad used to say Vanessa was 50 percent spunk and 50 percent sass, a combination that suited her well until around high school, when spunk and sass were no longer cute and lovable and instead came off as ditzy and spoiled and landed her in a crowd of wealthy losers, one of whom got her pregnant and never even knew it.

“I still don’t understand why you need to go to London,” Hadley says. “You’re already honeymooning in Belize, and this much change is going to be a lot for Skipper.”

“He’ll be fine. Skipper loves sports. It will give him and Tom something to bond over. Tom’s been going to Wimbledon since he was a boy. He says it’s a total blast and that there are tons of kids running around.”

Hadley grits her teeth to stop herself from screaming at her sister that Skipper doesn’t “run around,” that he can’t “run around,” and that if she lets him “run around,” he will end up lost, or worse, duct-taped to a tree by some kids who think it’s great fun to torture a defenseless, guileless kid like Skipper.

“Listen, Had, Tom’s here. I’ve got to go. I just called to tell you I got the passport.”

“Ness . . . ,” Hadley says, but the phone’s already gone dead.

She squeezes her eyes shut but then pops them open at the sound of tires turning onto the road. A second later, the silhouette of Frank’s brother’s car comes into view, the windows on Tony’s muscle car tinted so dark that, even in broad daylight, you can’t see through them. Hadley snuffs the cigarette into the planter beside the door, then hurries inside to tell the kids Frank’s home and that it’s time for dinner.

The sign on Mattie’s door reads, MOVE ON. Hadley ignores it and steps inside. Mattie is on her bed, a pair of headphones strapped to her ears, noxious music that sounds like dying cats caught in a rotor squeaking from the speakers. On her lap is a book, the cover maroon and old, like one of those books you would see in a lawyer’s office or in a library at Harvard.

Strewed on every surface are other books. It’s the one thing Mattie really cares about, and every minute she’s not in school is spent buried in the pages of a story. Dozing on the bed beside her is Prince Charles. Mattie must have lifted the old dog onto the bed, Prince Charles’s jumping days long over.

Mattie is so engrossed in the music and her book she doesn’t realize Hadley is there until Hadley is standing right in front of her. When she notices, she startles, then stiffens, her hate like a fist that knocks the wind from Hadley’s lungs.

Prince Charles lifts his head and thumps his tail three times.

Hadley hasn’t told Mattie the plan, terrified that either Frank will pick up on his daughter lying to him, or worse, that Hadley will chicken out and her daughter will hate her even more than she already does.

Mattie continues to glare through her kohl-lined eyes, her white-blonde hair draped across her face.

It’s still difficult for Hadley to get used to her daughter’s new look. When the school year started, Mattie’s hair was natural dark auburn and hung in long layers to the middle of her back. Now, eight months later, she is albino blonde, her hair cut severely to the middle of her neck, and the tips painted pink, blue, or green, depending on her mood. And she has a dozen piercings in her ears. The latest addition, a custom-designed silver serpent, winds in and out of several of the holes as if slithering through her skin.

Hadley has to admit the earring is bizarrely mesmerizing, though she can’t understand it. What girl wants to have a snake worming through her ear?

Mattie narrows her eyes, waiting for Hadley to say something, and Hadley is about to tell her Frank is home when something creepy-crawly moves beneath one of Mattie’s notebooks on the floor.

Hadley falls back, and Mattie leans sideways to see what’s caused the reaction. Then she goes on her knees and, using the edge of her book, scoots the notebook aside. Mother and daughter recoil together as the spider scuttles beneath the bed.

“Well, do something,” Mattie says, the most words she’s spoken to Hadley in a week.

Right. Do something. The problem is Hadley hates creepy-crawly things. Tentatively, she steps forward, then kneels on the carpet and lifts the bed skirt. The spider—shiny, black, and bloated like an overripe olive—stands frozen a few inches away.

“Here,” Mattie says, holding out a magazine she has rolled into a spider-smashing club.

“I don’t want to kill it,” Hadley says.