All the Rage(30)

But maybe it’s like the nail polish now.

Maybe I need something to seal it in.

“Romy?” Mom.

I tell her yes, I’m coming, and I run the water, rinse my hands. I hurry down the stairs and find food on the table. When Leon looks my way, he sees the red—he smiles. We sit and eat a salad that tastes like summer, even though it’s not.

“So,” Mom says to Leon. “How long have you worked at Swan’s?”

“I’ve worked there for a while. I worked there through high school and stopped for college—briefly—and then came back.”

“You’re not in school now?”

He shakes his head. “Wasn’t my thing.”

“Wasn’t mine, either,” Todd says.

“What is your thing?” Mom asks Leon.

“Uh.” He gives a nervous sort of smile, like he’s not selling himself so well here, but he looked for me last night. They’re already sold. He says, “I kind of run this Web site design and development business, actually. That’s my thing.”

“What?” I stare at him stupidly. “I didn’t know.”

“Really?” Mom asks.

“Yeah. I have a knack for coding and design, I guess. I started out making themes for blogging platforms and selling them and one of my themes got really popular about a year and a half ago and now I’ve extended my business into designing and developing personal and professional Web sites.”

“Nice,” Todd says. “So it’s doing well?”

“Yeah. I’m doing some author and up-and-coming band sites, some local businesses in Ibis. My sister sends all her friends my way,” he says. “I’ve got a few in the works right now. It looks like I’m on an upswing and I’d like to keep it going and turn it into my primary source of income. Scale back on hours at Swan’s.”

I’m stuck between the surprise of this and the guilt of finding it out, like I should’ve known or asked. I don’t know what to say.

“Well, that’s fantastic,” Mom says. “Holding two jobs like that. You like Swan’s?”

“It’s all right. I like the pace. Very fast. I like the people.”

“Like my daughter.”

Leon’s fork hovers over his plate.

“Mom,” I say.

He smiles. “Yeah, like your daughter.”


“You like my daughter,” she says. I kick her lightly under the table, which doesn’t feel like the natural order of things. She doesn’t even blink. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you going out there and looking for her.”

“Of course.”

Silence. Awful, awful silence. What am I supposed to say? Sorry? Again? Except I didn’t even say it to Leon once. I stab my fork through some cucumber and tomatoes and shove them in my mouth because I can’t say it at all if my mouth is full.

“That other girl,” Leon says. “Penny Young.”

I swallow. “You know about that?”

“Yeah. Her mom lives in Ibis. She’s there on the weekends—”

“Did you know her?”

“No. But everyone’s talking about it in town. I guess Grebe’s Sheriff’s Department is working with Ibis’s. What are we coming up on? Forty-eight hours? That’s never good.”

I set my fork down, appetite gone. I don’t know if it’s because it’s such a bad thing for him to say or because part of me still wants her to be missing on Monday in spite of it.

“Romy knows her,” Todd says.

“What?” Leon asks. “You do?”

“We go to school together. She’s in my grade.”

“They were very close at one time,” Mom says.

“Oh,” Leon says. I keep my eyes on my plate. “I’m so sorry.”

Mom and Todd wash up, leave Leon and me to our own devices. He suggests I show him Grebe but I tell him I’m feeling tired and show him our backyard instead. We sit on the dried-up lawn and stare at the neighbor’s fence.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about the Web site stuff?”

He shrugs. “I thought I’d show you at some point.”

I run my palm over the grass. When I look up, he’s watching me in a way that tells me we’re going to talk about things best left alone. I’m an expert when it comes to that look on people’s faces.

“I’m sorry for sticking my foot in it about Penny Young. I should’ve thought—”

“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re not close. Her and me. Not anymore.”

“I was going to say, inside … waking up and hearing about that—about Penny, after driving around all night looking for you. I mean, it was something else, looking for you, but hearing about this girl that didn’t make it home. I don’t know. Got me thinking. I called your mom and asked if I could come see you.” He pauses. “I had to see you.”

“Here I am.”

“What happened, Romy?”

I rip up a tuft of grass. I want to say nothing, but I guess I have to give him more than that, even if it’s all going to amount to nothing anyway. At least—it better. “You know about Wake Lake? About the party? We have it every year…”