Send Me a Sign(2)

“Mia, it’s hot, stop hanging on me. I’m fine.” Still the razor voice, but she was leaning into my hug. I didn’t move. “Keith’s an *. I don’t need him.”

She pulled her shoulders back, pulled away from me. In a fluid movement she rose from the chaise and dove into the pool, swimming a length before she surfaced and shook water out of her face. “Laur, Mia, Ally! Get your asses in here.”

Potential sunburn forgotten, Lauren obeyed instantly—the pull to be included stronger than her sense of self-preservation.

My phone beeped again as I stood. I gathered my hair into a messy knot with one hand and pulled up the texts from my mother, placing the phone on my chair so I could read them while I secured the hair elastic.

Drs called. I moved your appt to today. 4 pm.

Leaving now. Be ready when I get home.

“Aren’t you coming in?” Ally was already bobbing in the water, her toned arms wrapped around a pool noodle. “It feels amazing.”

“My mom.” I pointed to my phone. “Can’t. We’re going somewhere at four. If I’m not dressed and ready to go when she gets here …” There was no need to finish the sentence; we had years of friendship and my mom’s dramatics in our collective history. “Stay. Swim. If you’re gone before I get back, I’ll call you later.”

They were just bruises. It must have been a slow week at her advertising firm for Mom to make such a big deal about them. I probably had a low iron level or something—Lauren claimed she skewed anemic every time she went on a diet. I probably just needed to take a vitamin.

I paused before closing the door and shutting out the sounds of Ally’s high giggle and Hil’s throaty chuckle. Lauren shrieked, “You guys!” I leaned out, plucked one of the flowers off Mom’s bright-pink clematis from the trellis beside the door. Counting the petals as the door closed behind me:

One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret, never to be told …

Seven petals.

I crushed the flower in my hand.





Chapter 2

Coming tonight had been a mistake. I did a quick survey of the party: Hil mixing drinks on a makeshift bar made from hay bales; Ally and Lauren dancing; Ryan cocking his wrist to throw a Ping-Pong ball into a cup of beer. Since they were all occupied, I allowed my smile to slip, let my cup dangle loosely at my side, and stepped back into the shadows that formed along the wall beneath the hayloft.

“Drop the drink, Mia. We’re leaving.” It was Gyver’s voice.

He didn’t belong here. Not that the rest of us did, but we used the old Nathanson barn for parties more often than the East Lake Historical Society used it for their reenactments, so it felt like ours.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He grabbed the red plastic cup from my hand and threw it into the hay. “Seriously. I don’t care if I have to carry you. We need to go. Now.”

The action and the words clicked: he was the police chief’s son. “I’m not drunk. I can walk.”

“Then do. Quickly.” He grabbed my wrist and began to pull me past the stalls containing couples mid–hook up. Past the blaring iPod-speaker combo set up on the ladder to the loft and the barn door balanced on hay bales, where one game of beer pong was ending and guys were fighting over who was next.

“But what about—” Twisting back toward the loudest part of the crowd, I tried to locate Ryan or the girls. I stepped in someone’s knocked-over drink and slipped; my flip-flops had no traction on the dirt floor.

Gyver didn’t answer, just steadied me and hurried me out the door, down the grass slope, and into his black Jeep, which was still running at the edge of the nearly empty parking lot. Most people parked on the other side of the woods, so they could escape out the back and run if needed. Gyver barely stopped for me to shut my door before he pulled out and sped away. I waited for him to speak. He didn’t.

It was dark in his car. And quiet. The party lights and noise faded as we traveled around the lake and back toward town. It was too dark to see the titles of the CDs stored on the visor above my head. Too quiet for comfort. I couldn’t handle silence; I’d gone to the party to escape, so I wouldn’t have to think about what I learned today—and what would happen tomorrow. Not that I understood tomorrow’s agenda. I still couldn’t grasp what the doctor had told me. I understood the individual words, but strung together in a sentence they no longer made sense.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to comprehend anything yet. I wanted to hide from the truth for as long as possible. So while the doctor told my father about treatments and my mother sobbed on the shoulder of some supportive nurse, I’d tuned out and planned my outfit for the party we’d just left.

Parties and I were a predictable fit, like Gyver and his music. I reached up and grabbed one of his CDs—it could be any of his custom playlists: Songs for Studying, Rhythms for Rain, An Album for Algebra.

He liked alliterative titles. And names. Walt Whitman, Galileo Galilei, Harry Houdini, Arthur Ashe. And me, Mia Moore. Was that why we were so close? If I’d been named after Dad’s mother instead of Mom’s, would I be sitting in his car right now? Maybe my name was his sign.