White Rabbit(95)
As soon as Race was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health, he went straight into seclusion, moving to his grandparents’ house in Maine to weather the media storm surrounding the events of Independence Day. From what Sebastian’s heard, the Atwoods are seeking out a private school near Portland that he can enroll in come the fall. In similar news, Hayden has also decamped from Burlington for the foreseeable future, and I have to say I’m relishing every minute of a life without him in it.
Two days after reports of the shootout at Suzy’s American Diner made the news, Peter and Isabel decided to bestow upon their eldest a suspiciously convenient late graduation gift of a six-week European vacation. Hayden left on the first flight out, and is by now no doubt brawling outside nightclubs in Ibiza or drinking himself blind in Prague. If and when he eventually returns to the States, he’ll be bypassing Vermont altogether and heading straight to college in Massachusetts instead. According to April, Lyle’s boys still ride by their house every few days anyway, just in case the prodigal son should make an unexpected return.
April herself is in a very weird place. Of her former clique, Lia is the only member left—and the two of them can barely look one another in the eye after everything that’s happened. My sister was exonerated by the law, but her reputation at Ethan Allen has been permanently tainted, and so she’ll be attending a private school in the fall, too, just like Race. She’s made no secret of the fact that she’d also like to leave the state to do it, but Isabel has flatly refused on the grounds that it would look like running away.
In the meantime, without her popular clique to count on, April’s taken to texting me more and more often—and even inviting herself along when my friends and I hang out. It’s a turn of events that never stops feeling bizarre to me—but, somehow, it actually seems to work. Most of the time. There’s no way Peter approves of our associating, if he’s even aware of it, but he handles his daughter now even more lightly than he used to. April doesn’t always seem to enjoy the downgrade in her social status, which is not a huge surprise, but I think she’s learning that being an outcast comes with the liberating privilege of not having to worry about your image so much.
“A party sounds like fun,” Mom says insincerely, her eyes on the TV while her mind is clearly still back in early July, “but, you know, I’d appreciate it if—”
“If I come home no later than midnight,” I supply automatically, “and wake you up if you’re sleeping, so you know I’m not out getting murdered somewhere. I will, I promise.”
“You know, when most kids say sarcastic shit like that, they make it sound like their parents are paranoid neurotics,” my mother points out dryly. “Somehow, you don’t quite pull it off.”
I make a face at her just as a knock sounds on the front door, and Lucy Kim barges into the house without waiting for a formal invitation.
“Hey, Mom!” my best friend calls to my mother melodiously, bounding past her and hurling herself across the sofa like she belongs here. Which, let’s be honest, she really does. “Hey, dudes. What’s goin’ on?”
“You know, Lucy, it’s the funniest thing,” Mom says with a theatrically pensive expression. “If I weren’t absolutely sure my son and his boyfriend knew it was against house rules, I would almost swear I’d caught them in the middle of ‘Netflix and chill’ a few minutes ago. But they promise me that they are just watching a movie.”
Lucy widens her eyes and pulls her mouth down in an “oopsy” face, and then says, very chipper, “Rufus would never dream of violating a parental boundary, Mrs. Rufus’s Mom. Why, I remember the time I wanted to try that soda pop stuff I’ve heard all the kids talking about, and Rufus said, ‘No way, Jose,’ because soda pop leads to fornication—”
“Oh my gosh, okay—I surrender!” I exclaim. “I apologize for almost Netflix-and-chilling, all right?” Burying my face in my hands, I moan, “I should never have introduced you two.”
“Too late,” Mom says brightly, rising to her feet and straightening out her clothes. “Anyway, I suppose I should probably go and meet that client. Cross your fingers, because this could be a big fish.” Leaning down, she ruffles my hair affectionately. “See you later, kiddo. Have fun at your party.” At the door, she tosses back over her shoulder, “And, just so you know, I’m not going to go sit at the end of the block for a while and wait to see how long it takes for you to get rid of Lucy.”
Lucy and I both roll our eyes as the door slams shut.
My final showdown with Peyton resulted in two cracked ribs and a series of incredibly gnarly flesh wounds, and for a while there, my body was a Frankensteiny road map of damaged skin held together with stitches and staples. They gave me a course of nuclear-powered antibiotics at the hospital, and then kept me for a couple nights while they waited to see if I would develop some kind of horrible infection anyway. In all that time, my father did not bother to send me so much as a get-well-soon card; but on my last day, I did receive an unexpected visitor in the person of Isabel Covington.
She kept her remarks brief and to the point, offering up a terse “Glad to see you’re feeling better,” and then informing me—in the manner of a business associate imparting news of vaguely promising figures in the latest quarterly projections—that the police had officially cleared April of any wrongdoing in Fox’s death. “She wanted to come see you, but I didn’t think that would be appropriate.”