Promise Me Something (8 page)

I chose truth. I was not about to make a prank call.

“Hmmm.” Leah scrunched up her face. “If someone paid you fifty bucks, would you make out with a girl?”

“Probably not,” I said.

Olive looked up. “Why not?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I totally would,” announced Leah, but nobody paid her any attention.

“Let me guess.” The expression on Olive’s face was hard to read. “It’s against your religion?”

“Maybe it is. Don’t take it personally,” I said. The truth was it had nothing to do with my religion. I just wouldn’t want anyone at school to start spreading the rumor that
I
was gay. It would be impossible to live down, and Levi might lose interest in me. But I wasn’t about to get into an argument with Olive, so I shrugged. “I just wouldn’t want to, OK?”

She pressed her lips tightly and looked down at her fingernails.

“Anyway,” said Abby, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. “Should we keep going?”

“Yeah.” I looked back over at Olive without meeting her eye. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

I didn’t know what to ask her. I would have liked to know what she saw in me—why she’d picked me out of the crowd and made me her friend on that day in the cafeteria—but it was another one of those questions you weren’t supposed to ask in Truth or Dare. The game was supposed to be about crushes and boys. Who you’d kissed, who you wanted to kiss—that sort of thing. In the end, I fell back on the classic question, “How far have you gotten?”

Olive didn’t answer right away. She seemed to be waiting for me to finish the question. Then she said, “…Gotten where?”

Leah, Abby, and Madison burst out laughing.

Olive narrowed her eyes. “Do you mean like sexually?”

“Obviously!” said Leah.

Olive looked down at her lap. “Does online sex count?”

The laughing stopped abruptly.

“Like with a web cam?” Leah looked shocked. “Seriously? That’s
awesome
!”

“No, not like that.” Olive picked at a hangnail on her thumb. “Like, just by typing out the words of what we would do…”

“Oh my God.” Leah clapped her hands. “That’s so kinky! I love it!”

Madison’s eyebrows were raised so close to her hairline that her forehead had all but disappeared. “Who was the guy?” she asked.

“It wasn’t—” Olive paused. “It was just somebody random from the Internet.”

Everybody was quiet, waiting for details. I couldn’t believe I’d known Olive for almost two months, and she’d never once told me about having online sex with strangers.

“Anyway, I answered the question,” she said after a long silence. “I think I’m ready to go to sleep now. I’m exhausted.”

Abby made a boo sound and stuck out her lower lip.

Olive fluffed her pillow. “Like Reyna said, we had a long day.”

“Actually, I’m kind of tired too,” said Leah. “I think my sugar high is fading.”

So we all zipped ourselves into our sleeping bags and wished each other good night. I expected to hear Olive drift off first, but Leah was the first to start snoring, followed by Madison, and then Abby. Olive just kept rolling over in her sleeping bag.

“Are you OK?” I whispered after a while, turning on my side to face her.

“Just lovely,” she answered.

“Are you tired?”

“No.”

I pulled my sleeping bag up to my chin and stared at the ceiling. We were silent for a long time. Then she whispered, “I still can’t believe I have in-school suspension for threatening Gretchen Palmer with a pitchfork.”

“I know,” I said.

“I’m sorry, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For getting you involved.”

I shrugged, but she couldn’t see me. “It’s fine.”

“I could have protected you myself, you know.” She scooted her pillow closer to mine and lowered her voice. “I wouldn’t have let them suspend you. I didn’t need Levi Siegel to step in like some kind of knight in shining armor. I can do that.”

“I know,” I said.

Olive smiled at me with her lips pressed tightly together, and then we drifted into sleep.

Let’s play a game.

OK.

Say someone tells you they’re going to jump into a pool with you on the count of three.

Yeah?

But say that when you jump, they don’t. Say they just stand there laughing.

OK.

What would you do?

Kill myself.

Ha.

Did someone do that to you?

My mom. When I was little.

At least you know how to swim.

Ha ha.

Olive, you laugh a lot for somebody on a suicide prevention forum.

So?

Are you sure you’re actually depressed?

What’s that supposed to mean?

You might just be cynical.

Screw you.

I’m just saying.

Seriously. Screw you.

I wouldn’t do that, by the way.

What?

The pool thing.

I know you wouldn’t.

I’d jump with you.

I know.

W
hen your mom dies, Thanksgiving is the worst holiday. I still remember what she used to cook: sweet potato pie, hot spiced cranberry cider, gooey banana bread. The year I turned seven—the year of her accident—Dad put some chicken nuggets in the oven and we toasted her memory with apple cider from the A&P. After that, we stopped celebrating Thanksgiving at our house. Sometimes we went over to Abby’s and ate dinner with her family, and other times we just stayed at home and watched football on TV.

But this year, Lucy wanted to cook a bird at our house. She got the idea from a commercial—something about bringing people together—and once it calcified in her mind, there was no stopping her. I told Dad it didn’t feel right to me, but he insisted. “She wants to,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

So when Olive called me the weekend before Thanksgiving and asked if I felt like joining her family for their annual torture-fest, I said OK. Lucy was upset—she heard me making plans on the phone and then burst out crying when I left the room—but I couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for her. She shot me irritable looks all through dinner that night, and Dad told me later he was disappointed too, but only because he wanted us to be a happy family together. Fat chance.

When I arrived at Olive’s house on the night of Thanksgiving, the driveway was packed with cars. Dad didn’t pull in; he rolled to a stop at the foot of the driveway and craned his neck up at the two-story house. “Looks like a party in there,” he said. “Try to have fun, will you?”

“We’ll see,” I said, gathering my overnight bag off the floor.
Fun
and
Olive
weren’t exactly two words that belonged in the same sentence. It was true we’d been growing closer since Halloween, and I was starting to trust her almost as much as Abby, Leah, and Madison. But all the same, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had
fun
together—probably the day we threw candy at each other in her bedroom.

Olive greeted me at the front door flanked by her mother and father. Her mother looked pinch-faced and angry, but her father was more handsome than I expected: tall, with a chiseled face and well-groomed eyebrows. I barely had time to notice the Ralph Lauren insignia on his shirt before he extended a hand and shook mine so hard that my elbow cracked. “Welcome,” he said with a wide, artificial smile. “You’re just in time for the feast.”

They led me through the foyer, which was emptier and more echoey than I remembered, with tall white walls and modern art. It was a relief to step into the dining room, which was at least smaller but still looked like a museum. A heavy travertine table with a centerpiece of poufy blue hydrangeas dominated the room. Crowded around the table were all of Olive’s relatives and two empty chairs with perfectly straight backs.

Olive grabbed me by the arm and led me around the table to our seats. “You have to hear what went down between my parents this morning,” she hissed, but before she could elaborate, an old woman wearing a long string of pearls looked up from the table and barked, “Posture, dear! Remember your posture.” She was dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a white linen napkin, and her face had the same pinched expression as Mrs. Barton’s.

“I
am
remembering,” Olive muttered, straightening her shoulders. I took a seat next to her and put my napkin in my lap.

“It would be polite of you to introduce your friend,” said the old woman, who I was now sitting next to. I hoped my own posture was acceptable.

Olive sighed rudely. “Nana Jane, this is my friend Reyna,” she said. “Reyna, this is Nana Jane.” Then she turned back to me and tapped my empty place. “Do you want white meat or dark? I’ll get you some from the buffet.”

“White, please,” I said.

Nana Jane watched Olive leave the table; then she leaned toward me and asked me to repeat my name. Before I could answer, Mr. Barton stood up at the head of the table and tapped his spoon to his glass. I felt disoriented. It was unnerving to be plunked in the middle of someone else’s family gathering, with all its politics and personalities.

“Now that we’re all here…” Mr. Barton announced, clearing his throat, “I thought I’d say a few words…”

The room quieted as Olive slid back into her seat beside mine. “Here,” she whispered. “If you want any gravy, help yourself during the speech. He likes to hear himself talk.”

Mr. Barton began a typical Thanksgiving toast—something about coming together and the importance of family—and I zoned out, noticing that next to me, Olive was tracing a word into her mashed potatoes with her fork. At first I thought she was spelling
hell
and I felt a familiar twinge of annoyance. Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how much you hate your family, doesn’t count as hell. Learning that your mom was just killed by a drunk driver—
that’s
hell. But then Olive added a small swoop with her fork, and the word changed to
help
. I glanced sideways at her, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring straight ahead at her father. And before I had time to wonder about the word, she smoothed it over with the flat edge of her fork.

Other than Olive’s uncle dropping a plate of apple pie onto the carpet, dinner was uneventful. When we were finally excused after dessert, I followed Olive up to her room and set down my overnight bag on her impeccably made queen bed. “Well?” I asked. “What happened with your parents?”

“I didn’t want my grandmother to hear,” said Olive, kicking off her shoes in the direction of the closet. I took off my own shoes and lined them up neatly below her desk. Then I looked around, wondering whether I should sit on the floor or the bed.

“Just sit on the bed,” said Olive, noticing my hesitation. “It’s where we’re both going to be sleeping anyway. There used to be a cot up here, but I hardly ever had sleepovers, so my dad moved it to the storage shed.” She looked faintly embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“It’s OK,” I said. Madison had a queen bed too, and sometimes we slept in it together. It was easier and more comfortable than using a sleeping bag.

“The thing about my parents—you have to keep it to yourself,” Olive said, lowering her voice and making sure the door was closed.

I nodded and sat down on the bed, wondering if they were getting a divorce.

She
took a seat by the desk. “My dad wants to run for public office.”

I stared at her.

“District attorney,” she said. “Can you believe the jerk?”

I hardly knew what to say. “Is that bad?”

“Are you serious?” She laughed. “He’s a Republican.”

“Oh.” I looked down and busied myself with a loose thread on my shirt. I didn’t want to get into politics—not with Olive.

“It’s not just that,” she sighed. “When you run for office, your whole life gets pushed under a microscope. Your personal life. Your
family’s
personal life.”

“Are you sure?” I crossed my legs and leaned back against the headboard. “It’s not like he’s running for president. I’ve never even heard of the district attorney.”

“That’s because you don’t pay attention,” she said. “It’s a pretty big deal, and my mom flipped out when he told us. She threatened to tell a reporter about the time he cheated on her a couple years ago—as though
that’s
the real scandal in this family.”

“He cheated on her?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed again. “It’s one of those accusations she flings around when she’s drunk, only she wasn’t even drunk this morning.”

“Not at dinner either.”

Olive blinked. “You noticed?”

“Just a guess.” Mrs. Barton’s pinched, angry face floated in my mind.

“It’s because my dad threw out every drop of alcohol in the house this morning.” She stood suddenly. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

Without waiting to see if I was following, she strode out of her bedroom and led me down the hallway into another room—her father’s study. When she pushed open the heavy wooden door, I heard the sound of shattered glass crunch under its arc. The room looked fancy at first glance—my eyes landed on a great oak desk and a huge, swooping reading lamp—but nothing else was as it should have been. It looked like the scene of a crime. There was shattered glass everywhere and a dozen long-stemmed white tulips scattered across the rug.

“My mom did it this morning,” said Olive. “She lost control.”

I felt a pang and thought of Dad after the car accident, when he received the part of the medical bill not covered by insurance. He flung his bowl of Rice Krispies onto he floor, the milk splattering all the way across the kitchen. “You must’ve been scared,” I said, staring at the scattered tulips on the floor. I thought about picking one up, putting it into a vase with fresh water, and giving it to Olive.

“Whatever,” she said. “As long as I don’t have to clean it, I don’t care.”

“It’s not whatever,” I told her. “It’s horrible.”

“I know.” The corners of her mouth twitched upward in a smile. “Can’t you recognize a defense mechanism when you see one?”

I stepped backward into the hallway to leave, but Olive stayed still for a few seconds. She stood there with her hand on the doorframe, taking it all in, and when she finally followed me back to her room, she took a shard of glass with her and set it on her dresser.