The Life of Glass (21 page)

And that was absolutely all I needed to know. All I wanted to know.

And then it
was summer again.

Somehow, I survived my freshman year, passed biology with the help of Ryan, and even finished with an A in English, poetry and all.

In June Ashley got her new permanent teeth put in, and they are perfect-looking and even whiter and shinier than her real ones. Once her nose was fixed up, she admitted that she liked it better than the old one. It was sort of like she got the nose job she always wanted. For free.

She was training for the premier pageant circuit my mother had signed her up for, and my mother even
convinced her to join a gym to get into shape rather than resort to living on carrot sticks.

For about a month after school ended, we actually got along. We slept late in the mornings, and then we got up and watched
All My Children
together while we were still in our pj’s. We lounged around on the couch like two bums, and we talked trash about all the soap-opera actresses and who looked fat and who didn’t.

And then one day, in the middle of June, Austin stopped by. He and Ashley went to sit out on the back porch and talk. I tried to watch out the window of the family room, but I had no idea what they were saying. They looked serious and calm and not mad at each other. After a few minutes they both stood up, and they hugged.

Austin left out the back, and she walked back in. Her face was bright red from sitting in the heat, and she went to get a glass of water. “What did
he
want?” I asked.

She shrugged. “He wanted to get back together with me.”

“Seriously?” I said. “You could have any guy you want.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I told him I just wanted to be friends.”

She smiled, and I felt a little triumphant for her.

A few weeks later Ashley met a new guy at the gym. He was a tennis player and a sophomore in college—something she didn’t tell my mother, but I overheard her tell Bobblehead on the phone.

It didn’t take her long to ditch
All My Children
for scanning ESPN for tennis matches, and I decided if there was one sport more boring to watch than baseball, it was tennis. But for some reason I sat with her and watched it anyway.

By the beginning of July, Kevin had stopped sending my mother flowers. It was something we’d all gotten used to, the weekly FTD delivery. But we also knew it couldn’t last forever.

“What, no flowers today?” my mother said when she got home from work. Ashley and I shook our heads, and my mother looked a little sad.

“You should call him,” I finally said.

My mother cocked her head to the side and put her hand on her hip. “You don’t even like him.”

“He’s okay,” I said.

“You should,” Ashley chimed in quietly. Maybe it was because she liked her new face even better than the
old one that she forgave him, because it wasn’t like Ashley to be the bigger person.

“No, I can’t,” my mother said. “It’s been too long.” She paused. “Hasn’t it?”

I shrugged. Ashley shook her head.

My mother pulled us both into a hug and said, “Oh, my girls. You’re both getting so grown up, aren’t you?” She paused. “Ashley, one more year and you’ll be off to college, and then before I know it, Melissa, you’ll leave me too.”

Ashley walked into the family room, grabbed the cordless phone, and handed it to my mother.

Ryan and I can no longer ride our bikes in the wash, since I am still without a bike. But still, at night, after my mom and Ashley go to sleep, I climb out my bedroom window, jump down into the crushed rock and the garden of purple lantana my mother is working on, and walk down to Ryan’s house. Sometimes we hang out in his backyard and watch the stars. One night, as we are lying on the small patch of grass, I tell him the truth about Sally, how my father had dated her in high school, and then when she went away to college, how she left him, just like that.

Ryan squeezes my hand. “That’s never going to
happen to us,” he whispers.

“No,” I agree. “It won’t.”

Then, when the summer rains come, in the beginning of July, we walk to the edge of the wash and watch the river run through it, rough and terrible and almost like rapids.

Just before the end of July, when we know the water will soon disappear and the wash will be ours again to ride (or walk) and scavenge as we please, Ryan tells me that he has an idea. “Bring your glass tomorrow night,” he says. So I do.

We stand there on the edge of the temporary river, and it feels like the edge of the world. “How long did you say this glass would last again?” he asks.

“A million years,” I say. Now that it’s been so long, it’s a struggle to remember my dad’s voice, exactly what it sounded like. But I think I can still remember how it sounded when he said that. A million years. The way he stretched it into something stunning, so much longer than any of us could imagine.

“At the count of three, let’s throw them in,” he says. “Let’s let the water carry them.”

I hesitate for a moment. “I don’t know if I’m ready,” I say.

Ryan takes my hand, the one that is not holding the piece of glass. “You are,” he says.

He counts. One. Two. Three.

I hold my hand out and let go, and I watch the glass fly through the air and land with a small, graceful plop in the water, like a tiny stone.

I wonder where it will end up, who else might find it. And how it might journey on and on and on for what feels like forever.

Ryan puts his arm around me, and we stand there and enjoy the water for a while because, before we know it, it will be gone.

My deepest thanks
to my editors, Jill Santopolo, whose overwhelming support made writing this book a dream come true for me, and whose kind and smart suggestions always make my stories shine brighter, and Ruta Rimas, who nurtured this book through to publication and whose enthusiasm and support have been nothing short of amazing. Thank you to Alessandra Balzer and Donna Bray for graciously taking me in and giving this book a home. And an enormous thanks to everyone else at HarperCollins who has worked so diligently on my behalf.

I owe a debt of gratitude to my agent, Jessica Regel,
without whom, I am entirely sure, this book never would have existed. Thank you for your always sage advice and your tireless support. I am also grateful to everyone else at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency who works on my behalf—I feel so honored to be a part of your amazing group of authors.

A big thanks to Sarah Shealy and Barbara Fisch at Blue Slip Media for all the work they did in getting the word out about this book. You two are a publicity dream come true!

Thank you to my wonderful parents and sister, Alan, Ronna, and Rachel Cantor, always an incredible source of love and support in everything I do, and writing this book was no exception.

Thank you to my children and to my husband, Gregg Goldner, not only for giving me the time I needed to write this book but also for making my world an infinitely better place. And for being my relentless promoter and web designer, Gregg, I can’t thank you enough!

And to my loved ones who have suffered from cancer, you were in my head and my heart as Melissa’s story came to life.

Jacket art © 2010 by Fancy Photography/Veer

Jacket design by Jennifer Rozbruch