Saint Anything(101)

I’d laid out my case, presented points to her counterpoints. There was nothing else I could do but ask and hope that the luck Layla had talked about might find me.

“All right,” she said as the door from the garage opened. “I’ll think about it. Now will you please get me the curry powder and cumin from the cupboard? My sauce is thickening.”

I walked over, taking down the bottles she needed and bringing them to her. The contents of the large frying pan looked unlike anything she’d ever prepared before. I didn’t even know what tempeh was, but it didn’t seem very appetizing. I kept that thought to myself, however, as I handed her the spices. She squinted at the open cookbook, then twisted the top off the cumin.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, shaking some in. More steam rose up, followed by another blast as the curry powder hit. She poked at the vegetables with her spoon, folding them over once, then again. “What do you think?”

“It’s a change.”

“That it is.” She tossed in some more cumin, then leaned in close, taking a long sniff, then gestured for me to do the same. Hesitantly, I did. It didn’t smell bad or good. Just new. Different.





CHAPTER

23





IT WAS Saturday morning, and I was just getting out of the shower. The first voice I heard when I opened the bathroom door was Ames’s.

“Julie? Got a minute?”

He stepped out into the hallway, his phone in his hand. Instinctively, I pulled my towel more tightly around me.

“Not really,” my mom called back from the War Room. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“I have a feeling you’re not going to mind this particular interruption.” He smiled at me, broadly, as he walked to her open doorway. Then he held the phone out to her.

I had to give the guy credit. Presented with the possibility of being evicted from our house and daily life, he’d worked the only miracle he was capable of. I knew it the minute she said hello.

Peyton, he mouthed at me anyway, still smiling.

Suddenly, my mom was breathless, laughing, her words coming quickly and close together. Even from another room, I could feel her mood brighten, picture her face, flushed and happy. Just like that, everything changes.

But not completely. Despite the fact that they talked for a full half hour—my mom not budging once from the War Room, as if taking a single step might break this spell—Peyton wanted to take things slowly. When she asked if she could visit, he told her no, not yet; the phone was all he was ready for. Later, I wondered how Ames had talked him around, what he’d said to break this stalemate. If mothers could lift cars off their babies when necessary, it made sense that a person could go even further for their own self-preservation.

I’d gotten so used to Peyton’s not calling that I was actually surprised when the phone rang one afternoon a couple of days later. After the recorded voice finished, I took a breath.

“Hey,” I said. “Long time.”

There was a pause; I heard voices in the background. “Yeah. Things got kind of . . . tense. It had nothing to do with you.”

Now I was quiet for a moment. Then I said, “It’s been tense here, too. Mom busted me with my friends over, and I was drinking. She freaked and has had me on lockdown since.”

“What? You were drinking?”

He sounded so surprised, outright shocked, that I wondered if he’d actually forgotten where he was calling from. “It was a sip,” I told him. “And—”

“Sydney, don’t get caught up in that stuff. You’re way too smart.”

“It was a sip,” I said again. “And she basically took everything away from me. It’s not fair.”

In the silence that followed, I realized that this was the closest I’d come to telling Peyton how I felt about what he’d done and how it affected all of us. Immediately, I felt I should backtrack, cover my steps. Like it was too much, too soon, but at the same time long overdue. I opened my mouth, but then he was talking.

“You’re right,” he said. A pause. “It’s not fair. It sucks. I’m so sorry.”

I was not prepared for what I would feel, hearing these three words. All this time I’d wanted something just like this from Peyton. But now that I had it, it kind of broke my heart.

“It’s all right,” I told him. And that was how we left it. All right, or the closest we could get. Still, I’d replay this conversation in my head again and again, trying to get used to how it made me feel. Like my Saint Anything, it was a comfort I hadn’t known I needed until it was finally in my grasp.

As the days passed and my mom’s mood steadily improved, I let myself get a little hopeful. The showcase was so close, and her being again distracted by Peyton could only work in my favor. I was biding my time before I mentioned it again: I went to school, to Kiger, and to my room, hoping my good behavior was noticed. The times I did have with Mac, plus the promise of more to come, were the only thing that got me through. From the minute I saw him before the first bell to the last kiss as I got into my car to leave for Kiger, the day was just better.

A couple times he called me up when the band gathered in the outbuilding behind his house so I could listen in while Brilliant or Catastrophic—the official name, for now anyway—practiced. I’d put my phone on speaker next to me as I sat at Kiger or in my room at my desk. Listening, I’d imagine the scene: Eric posturing at the microphone, Ford in his typical daze, Mac keeping the beat behind them. There were the sudden stops and starts, occasional blasts of feedback, and routine disagreements. Each time Layla sang, though, I got chills. I could only imagine what it would be like to hear her at Bendo in person. If I got to go.