Reunited (2 page)
Authors: Hilary Weisman Graham
First and foremost I’d like to thank my manager, Seth Jaret. It is because of your wisdom and tireless support that I’ve been able to live out my dream of being a writer, and I feel incredibly blessed to have you shepherding my career.
To my editor, Alexandra Cooper—this book literally would not exist without you. Thanks for taking a chance on me, and for your creative vision and thoughtful guidance.
To my agent, Steve Malk—you are the man who Makes Things Happen. I feel lucky to have you on my team.
My deepest gratitude also goes to Lita Judge, Kim Dalley, and Lee Harrington for generously sharing your expertise in order to help me navigate the uncharted waters of the publishing world. Lee—you’re the best mentor a newbie novelist could ever hope for.
To my mom, JoAnne Deitch—you have always been my first reader and biggest cheerleader.
Much appreciation goes to Tonya Dreher, Jennifer Duffy, Bethany Ericson, Andrea Summers, Bob Summers, Emily Coburn, Caitlyn Coburn, Janet Graham, Ron Smith, and Ceara Comeau for agreeing to read
Reunited
in its early drafts. Critiquing a novel is no small task, and your comments and insights were an invaluable part of my writing process.
To Cia and the Goddesses—thanks for your encouragement, for your friendship, and
especially
for your endurance in
listening to me kvetch. I am deeply grateful to have you all in my life.
Brian Therriault, Emmanuel Ording, Bill Long, Kaori Hamura, Ethan May, Lisa Carey, Maggie Zavgren, Sadie Zavgren, Sofia Thornblad, Isabel Dreher, Anna Gombas, Rosemary Jo Crooker, Aidan Holding, David Stiefel, and Thomas Curran—I am hugely indebted to you all for volunteering your time and talents in order to help me turn my marketing pipe dreams into a reality. And I apologize for referring to you as my “army of slaves.”
A big thanks to Ariel Coletti, Amy Rosenbaum, and the rest of the team at Simon & Schuster for all of the many wonderful things you do.
To the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators—the benefits of winning the 2011 SCBWI Book Launch Award have been truly immeasurable. Thank you for bestowing this great honor on me and for helping
Reunited
achieve broader visibility.
And last but not least, my heartfelt thanks to Andy and Henry for your belief in me and for your constant love.
Reunited
“IS THE BLINDFOLD REALLY NECESSARY?” ALICE ASKED HER PARENTS.
“Yes!” they replied, in stereo.
Her mom tightened the bandanna around her head while her dad squeezed her shoulders. “March!” he commanded, steering her down the hall.
Alice tried not to get her hopes up about this mysterious graduation present—the Chia Pet they’d given her for her eighteenth birthday was still too fresh in her mind—but with all this hype, it was hard not to get a little excited. Especially if her parents remembered to consult the list of gift ideas she’d given them, typed up and organized by price. For a one-time event like high school graduation, Alice was hoping they’d spring for something from Category Two (iPad, camera, golden retriever) or maybe even Category One (laptop). After what happened yesterday, she could really use a good surprise.
“No peeking!” said her dad, guiding her through the living room and out the front door. Her mom made a drumroll sound with her lips, just in case the neighbors weren’t already staring. The Miller family had a reputation as the
neighborhood oddballs. Nothing too crazy, if you didn’t count the garden gnome incident. But Alice was pretty sure that in all of white-bread Walford, Massachusetts, hers was the only house with a pea-green 1976 VW camper van up on blocks in the backyard.
“Okay,” said her dad, “you may remove the blindfold.”
It wasn’t in the backyard anymore. The Pea Pod, as the van was affectionately known, was right there in her driveway. It looked shinier than she remembered, as if a clear coat of nail polish had been painted over a craggy old toenail.
“We fixed it up for you!” her mom announced, waving her arms like one of those ladies from
The Price Is Right
. “Completely restored, good as new.”
“It’s got new brakes, a new muffler,
and
a new paint job!” her dad said proudly. “We wouldn’t let you and MJ drive crosscountry if this baby wasn’t safe.”
Alice blinked a few times, adjusting to the bright summer sun and the shock of her disappointment. She still hadn’t told her parents the bombshell that MJ had dropped on her yesterday. She was afraid if she said it out loud, she might have to accept it herself.
“My road trip with MJ,” Alice began, tears welling in her eyes, “got canceled.”
“Why?” asked her dad.
“Because Mrs. Ling is making her go to China all summer long,” Alice stammered. She hated to cry in front of them. She
hated anything that threatened her image as the Confident Girl Who Had It All Together.
“But you girls have been planning this trip for two years,” said her mom.
“Exactly,” Alice whined. She caught her reflection in the van’s windshield, confirming that she looked as pathetic as she felt. Mascara—the only makeup she ever wore—was running down her cheeks, her long brown curls a frizzy fiasco, thanks to the blindfold.
Her dad wrapped her up in his arms. “Poor kid, you’re not having much luck these days, are you?”
Understatement of the year
. Her best friend was on a plane over the Pacific instead of getting ready for their last big precollege hurrah. Not that Alice actually knew
which
college she’d be going to. She’d applied to Brown early decision and they’d put her on the wait list.
Hello, admissions people, it’s the end of June . . .
Her dad finally released her from the hug. “Well, like the great John Lennon once said, ‘Life’s what happens while you’re making other plans.’”
“And that’s supposed to be a good thing?” Alice asked. She wanted to believe that everything happened for a reason, that her canceled road trip and being wait listed by Brown were all part of the universe’s grand scheme. But sometimes she wondered if destiny was just something people believed in to make themselves feel better when they didn’t get their way.
“You know,” said her mom, “there was a time when we couldn’t get you out of the Pea Pod.”
Yeah
, thought Alice,
when I was twelve
. Back in middle school, when Summer Dalton and Tiernan O’Leary were still her best friends, the Pea Pod had been their clubhouse. “Three peas in a Pea Pod,” her mom used to say. Alice always acted like the nickname embarrassed her, but secretly she’d liked it.
“Why don’t we go give her a whirl?” asked her dad. “It might take your mind off things.”
“That’s a great idea!” said her mom. “It’s a beautiful day for a drive.”
Can’t I just wallow in self-pity for one minute?
Alice wondered. Then she looked at her parents. Her dad was buffing the van with his T-shirt. Her mom held the digital camera in her hand.
“Fine,” she said, tugging on the van’s sliding door. After avoiding the Pea Pod for the last four years, she had to admit, she
was
a little curious. Had they reupholstered the orange-and-green plaid seat cushions? Ripped down the limited edition Level3 poster signed by all three members of the band?
They hadn’t. The inside of the Pea Pod looked exactly the same as she remembered it. Level3 memorabilia was still plastered on the walls—song lyrics written on heart-shaped pieces of paper, faded pinups of the boys ripped from the pages of
Rolling Stone,
glossy eight-by-tens covered with sloppy Magic Marker signatures. It was just like the sign taped to the dashboard said:
LEVEL3 SUPER-FAN HEADQUARTERS
.
“We didn’t want to mess with your stuff,” said her dad.
Of course, he was living in the past, as usual. Level3 wasn’t even a band anymore. They broke up the beginning of her freshman year, right before Alice, Summer, and Tiernan did. But back when they were together—when
everything
was still together—Alice and her friends had been diehard fans. Two all-ages shows at the Middle East, six at Boston Garden, three at the Orpheum, four at the Worcester DCU Center, and one at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, which resulted in their parents making a collective rule about not driving the girls to a concert more than fifty miles from home.
Alice couldn’t help but smile as she took in the display of old collages. When they were young, Alice, Summer, and Tiernan were practically as obsessed with making Level3 collages as they had been with the band. These weren’t ordinary collages, like the kind they used to make in their seventh-grade health class on the dangers of cigarettes. The Level3 collages were art (or at least they aspired toward it). Their final masterpiece consisted of hundreds of tiny cutouts of the boys in Level3, assembled into the shape of an eye. At the center—the pupil—was a photo of Alice, Summer, and Tiernan, age twelve, arms slung around each other, smiling.
“Why don’t I start her up, and you can watch how I drive her for a while? The gear shift takes a little practice so—”
“I know how to drive, Dad.”
“Not so fast. There’s an art to driving the Pea Pod.”
Alice rolled her eyes and flopped down on the bench seat in back, buckling herself in for the trip down memory lane. She’d been sitting right here the first time she’d listened to Level3. They were just eleven when Tiernan showed up with the CD her older brother burned for her—“Level3” scrawled in black marker across the front. It took Alice a few songs to get into it; the music was so different than the sugary Disney pop she was used to. Then something clicked and she started to really listen—not just with her ears, but with her whole body. It was an intense feeling, like she was hearing music for the first time. Like Level3’s songs expressed all the things she felt but didn’t have the words for. By the end of the album, she was hooked. They all were.
And that was
before
they found out that the boys in the band were cute. Alice liked Ryan because he played the bass with his back to the audience, and she had a thing for shy guys. Tiernan had a crush on Luke, poster child for crazy drummers everywhere. And Summer liked Travis, the lead singer-slash-guitarist-slash-total hottie.
Quickly, the Pea Pod morphed into a Level3 shrine. And like all worshippers, the girls had their rituals.
Step One: Crank up a Level3 tune and dance like crazed animals.
Step Two: Snack break in Alice’s kitchen; check fan blogs, official band website.
Step Three: Back to the Pea Pod to discuss fantasies of meeting
Level3 boys in real life, possible planning session about triple wedding in Vegas.
Step Four: Put on a sad song, light some candles, lie down on the floor with eyes shut.
“Honey, are you coming?” her dad asked, snapping her out of her reverie.
“Sure, Dad, sure,” Alice said, noticing that he’d actually pulled over and moved himself into the passenger’s seat. It was funny: Alice thought she’d never step foot inside the Pea Pod again after the three little peas turned into split-pea soup, and now here she was, about to drive it.
“Now the clutch is finicky, so you have to push it all the way to the floor . . .”
Alice nodded patiently as her dad shouted commands all the way around the neighborhood loop. Twice. But by the third pass, even
he
had to admit she was Pea Pod proficient. So, she figured it was time for some tunes.
“What’s the deal with this thing?” Alice asked, turning on the radio. “You and mom couldn’t shell out for a new sound system?” She punched the preset buttons one by one. Nothing but static.
“Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road!” her dad yelled, noticing one of Alice’s hands was missing from his mandatory nine-and-three o’clock arrangement.