Pretty Crooked (3 page)

Thank him?
Pfft
. For making me stand out here and sweat? I’d been thinking maybe I could hang out with this guy, but now I knew he was way too cocky. I watched him wander over to some other kid, who was giving him a high five. Probably congratulating him on his prank.

“You can all go inside now,” announced a man in a suit. I assumed he was the principal, or someone of equal authority. “We’ve checked it out and everything’s fine.”

Like a vision in denim, Cherise emerged from the crowd and came over to where I was standing. “There you are. I see you met Aidan Murphy. An essential part of the VP experience.”

My bewilderment had to be showing on my face. “What’s his deal?”

She raised a shoulder in half a shrug. “Besides flirting with every new girl that comes through the school?”

“Besides that.”

“
He
thinks he’s special, that’s for sure,” she said, fluffing the ends of her hair. “But everyone seems to lust after the guy, or at least every freshman and sophomore girl at Prep.”

“I can see that, I guess.” You’d have to have cataracts not to. We made our way back toward the door, along with everyone and their mother.

“Well, he’s hot, of course. But my theory is that it’s because he’s rich. He oozes the slickness.”

“Isn’t everyone here rich?” I asked.

“Well, there’s rich and then there’s my-dad-is-CEO-of-MTech rich,” she explained. “It’s a whole other level.”

“MTech?
The
MTech, of virus-killing software fame?” I’d seen a whole documentary on the company on TV not that long ago, about how it had revolutionized computer security and how its CEO—Aidan’s dad, apparently—was regarded as a genius in the field, the Steve Jobs of the future.

“That’s the one.” I could tell Cherise had more to say on this topic because she had pinned her lips together in a tight smile. But instead she said, “Homeroom is probably over by now. What do you have second period?”

“Earth science.”

She pointed to a standalone building with solar panels on its roof. “That’s over there.”

“Thanks for looking out for me,” I said, feeling a swell of affection toward her. This girl was definitely cool. Of all the people to be almost killed by in the parking lot, I’d clearly picked the right one.

“No problem.” She smiled slyly and clapped a hand on my back. “Welcome to Prep, young Willa. We have a lot to teach you.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE PLACE ON Morning Glory had to be the swankiest house I’d ever seen up close, let alone slept in. Over the years, we’d pretty much run the gamut of low-rent living. Sometimes it was an apartment tower, other times a trailer, and for one cool and rainy Oregon summer, our car. Our last place, the Colorado house, was a small brick bungalow with two tiny bedrooms and a mildewy bathroom ceiling.

We were free spirits, my mom said. Artists didn’t worry about mold. We went where the wind blew us. I kind of did worry about the mold and I was pretty sure she was more of a hippie than I was, but whatever. We were together, the two of us, and that’s what mattered.

But this place was something else. Long and low, it was shaped like a squashed
u
and capped with a funky Spanish tiled roof. There were two tall palm trees in front and a neat little covered walkway from the driveway to
the front door. A row of giant glass windows streamed light from the backyard through to the front. It looked like something out of a magazine, or one of those true-crime shows where someone gets murdered and no one can believe it because the neighborhood is so nice.

After school, I walked my bike up the driveway and leaned it against the garage door. I was still using the front entrance like a guest, and I still got a tickling feeling across my shoulder blades every time I came home.

Once inside, the AC hit immediately, the cool air rushing around me like a doting servant. Yeah, the free-spirit lifestyle was overrated.

The place came furnished, but nicely, with clean-looking chairs and couches—unlike so many of the places we’d put up with in the past. I walked through the huge sunken living room into the den with its wall-sized stone fireplace and sliding glass door leading out to the pool. Our own pool. Sparkly, turquoise water rippling and beckoning me for a swim any time I wanted it. As soon as I finished my homework, I was so going to start working on my tan.

“Mom?” I called, and marveled at the echo of my voice bouncing through the multiple rooms. We could actually lose each other in this place. That was a first.

No answer. I walked into the kitchen, where there was a gigantic island, all-new appliances, and a terracotta tile floor. As always, she’d left a snack out on the counter. Smiling widely, I grabbed one of her famous
raw cashew cookies and sank my teeth into it. It was soft and sweet. Was it possible that even the food tasted better here? It was paradise, after all.

A laundry room and the master bedroom—it was called a “suite” on the Realtor’s website—were a few steps beyond the kitchen, with the laundry room opening into the garage. The bedroom had a little area for dressing, two closets, and a gigantic bathroom—we could’ve fit all of our possessions in there easily, especially now that she’d gotten rid of a few more lip glosses. We didn’t have much to begin with, though—my mom made sure we didn’t spend a lot of money on wasteful things and she was always telling me to keep it manageable—i.e., not to buy more stuff than we could haul to our next destination.

My bedroom had only one closet, but it was a huge walk-in lined with built-in shelves and little organizer cubes, plus an adjoining bathroom with an enormous glass-walled shower. The tile was marbled and the shower-head hung from the middle, offering a rainlike sprinkle that had already done wonders with my hair.

I flung my bag down on the bed and sank in next to it, unlacing my boots and wondering what exactly it was they put in this mattress to make it so soft and firm at the same time. I felt like a princess, pampered and comfy under my smooth expanse of perfect white ceiling. So far, Arizona and I were getting along just fine.

“Mom?” I tried again.

“In here, sweetie,” she called.

I found her in the middle bedroom, the one she said was going to be her studio-slash-office. She’d wasted no time in making the studio her own, apparently, because she was standing in front of her easel, wiping a brush on a rag. She was wearing old jeans and a ratty T-shirt—her usual uniform for painting. Her blond hair was messily tied back because she was too impatient to dry it.

I had the same blond hair, though mine was longer and just a tad wavier. Even though she was taller and more graceful, people always knew we were related—the hair, the hazel eyes, and the round freckly cheeks were giveaways.

“I know I was supposed to be unpacking today, but I looked out the window and that light just smacked me in the face. I couldn’t let it go,” she said. “I mean, look at that.”

I looked, grinning from ear to ear. We were seriously crushing on this place.

Then I took a peek at her latest creation. “That looks great,” I said.

Like all of her paintings it was abstract, a landscape with blurred patches of bright jewel colors. The ground melded into sky like dyed cotton. She said it was all energy, and that’s why you could never really truly pin down anything living on paper—just the “feel” of things. I loved looking at her work because it was like peering into her brain and seeing how she filtered the world.

“So? How was it?” She rubbed her hands together. “I want to hear everything.”

I wasn’t sure where to begin. “Amazing? I mean, they have everything. Did you know they have a movie-making lab? And a radio station and a skating rink?”

She cocked a sneaky half smile. “You don’t even want to know all the hoops I had to jump through to get you in there.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” I said, giving her the side-eye. Sometimes her methods for doing things were, shall we say, a little
suspect
.

“And the people?” She sat on the desk and leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand.

“I met a few. A girl who seems pretty cool. Then there was this guy—I don’t know, he was kind of intense.”

“A guy?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Not like that,” I quickly countered. I don’t even know why I brought it up. There’d never been anyone “like that.” We’d moved around so much I didn’t have the chance to get to know anyone in a boyfriend capacity. Sure, I’d had some infatuations. They were usually sweet, laid-back, shy types. This Aidan character was none of the above. The hawt factor alone put him into another category.

“But a friend?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

My mom had never really dated much, either. It was kind of weird unspoken territory between us.

I knew the basic story—I’d heard it a thousand times: She’d gotten pregnant with a high-school boyfriend and dropped out to have me, even though her parents disapproved and eventually disowned her. The guy—you know, the one whose genetic material I carry?—was out of the picture and enrolled in the military by the time she ran away from home, and he was never heard from again.

“We just went our separate ways,” was my mom’s explanation.

Beyond that, she hardly mentioned him. I wanted to know more, of course—not in an I-must-seek-you-out-when-I-turn-eighteen kind of way, but more of a vague hope that someday our paths might cross. The thing was, in the day-to-day, he’d never been there, so it’s not like I missed anything.

It had always been the two of us. Not your typical American whatever, but my mom always did what she could to make it work. We didn’t really need anyone else, as far as I was concerned. We had our own
Gilmore Girls
thing going on.

“I’ve totally lost track of time in here.... Well, I should get back to work, shouldn’t I?” I followed her out into the living room as she gestured to the boxes lying around. “This stuff isn’t going to unpack itself.”

“I’ll help,” I said, kneeling down and reaching into a box for some books.

“So, I’m thinking that we could put that photo I took
of Tillamook State Forest over the couch here,” she said, making a frame with her fingers. “And maybe the Navajo rug would go well in the den? I’ll leave out a few paintings we can hang, too.”

“Yes, yes, and yes.” I was excited to hang my mother’s paintings around the new place. For years, she’d been struggling to get some attention for her artwork. Her dream had finally come true—this house was proof of that—and she deserved to revel in it.

“Oh, I also did a little more research today. Do you know that there are like ten ski resorts within a ten-mile radius?”

“We don’t ski,” I reminded her, as I stacked up the books next to me. “Which I’m pretty sure made us the freakiest people in Colorado. Is that why we had to leave? You can tell me the truth.”

My mom giggled. “No, we were the dump
er
, not the dump
ee
, I swear.”

“Mom, are you sure we can, like, afford all of this?” I asked, glancing out to the pool. It was such a dramatic change for us. For the past few days I’d just been swept up in the excitement, but suddenly I was worried she was going overboard.

“Of course, sweetie,” she said, beaming at me. “This is what we’ve been scrimping and saving for, all these years: a beautiful new life. We’re just lucky, with the market, that Arizona is so affordable now. And Valley Prep is a great school—it’s supposed to be one of the
best. You’ll be all set for college.”

“College,” I repeated, like it was a new word. I pulled out some sheets of newspaper from the box and flattened them. I’d been so busy picturing our new lifestyle—Whole Foods groceries, all the cable channels, maybe even salon haircuts—that I’d blocked out the fact that my mom had something else in mind. Valley Prep was supposed to prepare me for the future.

Gulp. No pressure or anything.

“I had you so young, Willa—not that I would trade that for anything in the world—but you know, I didn’t get to do this stuff or have any of these opportunities you have. The Valley Prep website said one hundred percent acceptance rate. Who knows? You could even go to an Ivy League school if you wanted.”

“Let’s not go crazy,” I said. “That’s a lot of paintings.”

The future was never a good subject for me. The present—this one, right now, with this incredible stuff all around us—was where it was at. I stood up and bundled some of the newspaper before carrying it into the kitchen. By the trash can, a door slid open to reveal a three-part recycling bin.

“Did you see this?” I called out, laughing in disbelief. “Even the garbage has a cute little nook in this place!”

“I saw that,” she yelled back. “There’s no place to compost, but I’ll have to figure something out.”

“Not near the pool, please,” I said, imagining a rotting pile of food clippings growing on the patio.

She appeared in the doorway with a wink and a smile. “I was going to just throw it into the water. You think that’s a bad idea?” She gestured me toward her room. “Come in here. I want to show you something.”

She led me to her closet. Most of her clothes were already unpacked and hanging neatly. On the floor where she’d lined up her shoes was the small silver safe she’d always kept with us. She didn’t trust banks, so whatever cash she had was kept in there. Like I said, she’s kind of a hippie.

“I’m going to give you the combination. I want you to feel at home here, and I want you to start being more independent, so if you need some money, you can take it. Within reason, of course.”

I nodded slowly, taking in the information. This was new. I’d never been trusted to open the safe myself before. It felt good, to be treated like an adult. But a little scary, too, to have that responsibility. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

“And there’s this.” She handed me a small red satin envelope.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling its soft weight in my palm. But I knew. It was my moving gift. Every time we’d uprooted, my mom had given me a little something—a crystal perfume bottle or a beautiful piece of sea glass. Never anything expensive; just a small token I could hold on to or look at when I was feeling down. I’d saved them all and kept them on my dresser. Even when
a new place seemed tough, the moving gifts always made me feel more hopeful, and they reminded me that she had my back.