The Poison Apples (16 page)

“Shanti?”

“REENA!” she shrieked in horror.

I laughed. “She's not here, Mom. She's inside the dorm with Dad and Pradeep.”

There was a sigh of relief. Then, suspiciously: “Where are you?”

“I'm waiting outside. For someone. I'm … it's a long story.”

“A boy?”

“No, no.”

“Do you have a crush on a boy, Reenie?”

I paused for a second too long.

“You do!” she crowed.

“Oh, God, Mom. Leave me alone.”

“What's his name?”

“Some other time, okay?”

“Fine.” She returned to her original topic. “So, tell me what she's wearing.”

I giggled. “You're not going to believe this.”

“What?”

“A pink sari.”

“You're kidding.”

“I'm not.”

For some reason I'd thought that my mother would think this was funny. Instead there was an ominous silence.

“Mom?”

“Does she look pretty?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, Mom.”

“She does, doesn't she?” I heard a muffled sob.

“Oh, God. No. She doesn't. She looks really really dumb. Trust me.”

“Has your father mentioned anything about money?”

“Uh, no.”

“I had to sell the Blahniks, Reenie.”

“The what?”

“The Manolo Blahniks! My favorite high heels!” She erupted into a fresh round of tears.

“Mom. I have to call you back later.”

There was a short, high-pitched moan, and then the phone clicked off.

Great.

I'd just made my mother cry.

I was almost as bad as Shanti herself.

Suddenly I spotted a blond head of hair moving down the steps of the dorm and onto the grass. I darted behind the tree and peeked out. It was Alice. Walking with … Molly Miller's parents. With Molly Miller nowhere in sight. Weird.

Something fishy was going on.

I waited until Molly Miller's parents and Alice were a safe distance away, and then I darted up the stairs, into the dorm, into the cafeteria, and back to my family's table. Pradeep was staring at his plate. My dad and Shanti had their arms draped around each other's shoulders. Was it possible for them to stop touching for more than a second?

They all looked up at me.

“Where were you?” asked Pradeep.

“I, uh, ran into a teacher.”

Pradeep burst into a wicked grin. “That David guy?”

I shot him a death glare. “No.”

Shanti clapped her hands. “David? David who?”

“No one,” I said. I sat back down at the table and stepped on Pradeep's sneaker with the heel of my stiletto boot. He yelped. Dad and Shanti looked at us, confused. Pradeep and I both gave them big, fake smiles.

“It is
so
weird to be back here,” Shanti said, and stared dreamily around the cafeteria. “Everything looks the same.”

“How's your penguin?” Pradeep suddenly asked.

I blushed, but Shanti didn't seem bothered by the question at all.

“His name is Ganesh,” she said “And he's the sweetest thing in the world.”

Pradeep nodded vigorously in a way that I recognized to be a complete mockery of everything Shanti was saying. But she didn't seem to catch on.

“He is just
so
cute, Reena,” she told me. “You would die.”

“Isn't he lonely without any other penguins around?” I asked.

She blinked. “Um. No. I don't think so. He has me, after all.”

“How much does it cost to maintain his, uh, environment?” Pradeep asked.

Shanti suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Um … I'm not sure.…” Her eyes darted over to my father.

“That's an inappropriate question, Pradeep,” my father said.

“Why?” asked Pradeep.

“Because—”

“Because it's money Mom should be getting but instead it's going toward an enslaved penguin?” Pradeep said, his voice icy cold.

Shanti's eyes widened and filled with tears. “Ganesh is
not
enslaved.”

Pradeep burst out laughing.

“Pradeep,” my father hissed, “if you don't stop right now, I promise you you will be sorry.”

Pradeep stood up and pushed his tray forward. “I'm actually done,” he announced, “with this delicious cafeteria dinner. I propose we go upstairs and see Reena's room. All in favor say aye.”

Shanti sniffed. My father put a protective arm around her waist. I shrugged. Alice was safely out of the building. Now was as good a time as any.

“Aye,” I said.

*   *   *

We trudged down
the long, dimly lit second-floor hallway, Pradeep and I taking the lead, Dad and Shanti trailing behind us, holding hands.

“Wow!” exclaimed Shanti. “This dorm hasn't changed at all!”

“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly. It could really use a renovation.” I peeled a piece of plaster off the wall and showed it to her while we walked.

We reached my door.

“Welcome,” I said grandly, “to the Paruchuri abode.”

Pradeep snickered. I threw the door open.

And then I heard someone scream. From inside the room.

I shrieked in response and fell back against the door.

“What in God's name is going on?” my father asked.

I took a deep breath and peeked inside.

Alice Bingley-Beckerman was standing in the middle of our room. With … Molly Miller's parents. She looked as pale as a ghost.

“Reena,” she said. “Um … I didn't think you'd…”

“Hi,” I said. “Yeah … I thought…”

We were unable to finish our sentences.

“I left my purse behind!” said Molly Miller's mother cheerfully. She was a tiny, beautiful woman, but her eyes seemed to gleam with a kind of psychotic rage. She was also wearing way too much makeup.

“Um…,” said Alice. Her mouth was moving, but no words were coming out. She seemed to be in some kind of physical pain. “Um,” she said again. “Reena, I'd like you to meet my father and my stepmother.” Her cheeks flushed, and she refused to look me.

I frowned. “Wait. I thought you said—”

She suddenly looked up, her blue eyes connecting with mine, and I suddenly saw that she was pleading,
begging
with me not to finish my sentence.

And for some reason—even though Alice Bingley-Beckerman had officially been my nemesis for the past three weeks—I didn't.

And then I thought:
Stepmother?

“Hello,” the woman said, and she glided forward and offered me her miniscule, jewel-encrusted hand. “My name is R. Klausenhook.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. I had no idea what was happening. Why had Alice told me that this was Molly Miller's mother?

“I'm Nelson, Alice's father,” said the tall, stern-looking man at her side, and instead of shaking hands he gave me a little nod.

“Reena?” asked a sugary sweet voice from behind me. “Aren't you going to introduce us?”

My heart fell. In the shocking moment of discovery that Alice Bingley-Beckerman, Miss Perfect, was the possessor of a stepmother, and weird-seeming one at that, I'd forgotten that I had one, too.

“Oh, yes,” I said, and stepped aside. “Alice, this is my father and, um, stepmother.” Now I was the one who couldn't look anyone in the eye.

“I'm Shanti Shruti,” said Shanti Shruti loudly. I winced. Did she have to say her last name, too? The fake Indian-ness was too absurd for words. I glanced at Alice, who now looked as surprised as I'd felt a minute before.

“Hello,” Alice said, and I saw her eyes move up and down Shanti Shruti's body, taking in her blond hair, her tanned skin, her lithe, young body, and her … sari.

“I'm Rashul,” boomed my father, and for the next minute everyone shook hands with everyone else. Even Pradeep, who was sulking near the doorway, eventually introduced himself and offered out a limp hand to Alice and her father and stepmother.

“Well,” said Shanti, beaming at Alice. “I'm so glad we got to meet you. It actually seemed like Reena was trying to hide you from us.”

I closed my eyes, chagrined. But when I opened them I saw that Alice was looking at me and … smiling.

“No, no,” she told Shanti. “Not at all. If anyone's been hiding, it's me.”

And to my surprise, I found myself smiling back.

TWELVE

Molly

All around me were teenagers
trying, valiantly, not to cry.

It was Sunday afternoon, and Parents Weekend was finally over. And it was funniest thing: My fellow students had looked so miserable and self-conscious for all of Friday and Saturday, like they were just dying for their families to leave. Even the most popular and frightening kids on campus—the gorgeous Jamie Vanderheep, the icy Rebecca Saperstein—were rendered sulky and uncomfortable in the company of their plump, cheerful, fanny-pack-toting parents. The look on everyone's face, for all of Parents Weekend, was
Get these people away from me.

But now the parents were taking off, piling into their cars and driving away, everyone was feeling the inevitable pang you feel when your parents finally do go, no matter how annoyed you've felt with them: suddenly you experience a strange, sinking,
oh my God don't leave me
sensation. Even the most bulky and imposing football player on campus was sitting alone and cross-legged near me on the student union green, toying with a dandelion and gulping back what looked like sobs of genuine loneliness and woe.

I just felt relieved.

I'd been one of the only kids on campus who didn't have a single family member visiting all weekend, and it had made me feel more like a freak than ever. I hadn't been in touch with my father and Candy since the night I ran away from their house—my father had phoned my dorm room repeatedly, I'd refused to return his calls, and then they'd finally just petered out—and there was no way my mom was going to be able to come. I'd called Silverwood a few days before and the staff had informed me that she wasn't even taking visitors for the next few weeks. Clearly things had gone downhill. I was trying not to think about it.

But it was hard. For forty-eight hours I'd been surrounded by hundreds of smiling, well-meaning families, and hundreds of kids not appreciating how lucky they were just to have one.

Alice Bingley-Beckerman, for example.

She'd spent the past month complaining to me about how evil her stepmother was (and, after meeting R. Klausenhook, I kind of had to agree—she was pretty awful), but her father was
Nelson Bingley
. One of the twentieth century's great geniuses. I couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to grow up with an intellectual, educated, perceptive father. Let alone the fact that her mother had been Susan Beckerman, another great novelist. Alice's childhood in Brooklyn Heights sounded idyllic. And hanging out with her father was like an honor in itself.

So I couldn't understand why shortly after dinner on Friday night, Alice had abruptly informed me that she needed some “alone time” with her father and R.

And then that “alone time” had extended itself to … the rest of the weekend.

Didn't she understand that I had no one to visit with, and nowhere to go?

Alice was supposed to be my new best friend. But during the past two days she had already hurt my feelings beyond belief. I'd spent the entire weekend alone in my room, lying under my covers and reading the Oxford English Dictionary. And even the fascinating discovery that the word
stepmother
has existed in some form in the English language since the year
AD
725 didn't really make me feel any better.

Now I was lying on my stomach on the student union green, rereading
Zen Ventura
for Newman's humanities class, and hoping that Alice—now that her father and R. had most likely taken off—would come and find me.

I was mad and hurt, but I still wanted to see her.

A mosquito started flying around my head. I batted it away, annoyed. Every year in Massachusetts it seemed like the mosquitoes were around just a little longer than they should be. After all, it was already October. The mosquito buzzed closer to my ear. I could hear its wheedling, whingeing little voice get louder and louder. Suddenly I felt like it was actually flying around inside my brain.

“Aaa!”
I yelped. I sat up and slapped the side of my head.

Then I heard giggles coming from a short distance away.

Assuming that the laughter was coming from the smirking mouths of kids like Vanderheep and Saperstein, I tried not to look in their direction. But then my eyes slid to the side in embarrassment, and I suddenly recognized the bright yellow head of hair.

It was Alice.

She was sitting with—could it be?—Reena Paruchuri.

The two of them were talking. And laughing. In fact, given all the solitary, red-eyed teenagers sitting by themselves on the green, Alice and Reena seemed almost inappropriately happy.

Without even thinking about it, I stood up. “Alice!” I called out.

Her bright blue eyes flashed in my direction, and then dulled at the sight of me. “Oh, hi, Molly,” she said. Her voice sounded flat.

Reena, who had been in the middle of saying something, glanced up at me distractedly and then looked away.

I walked over toward them. My legs felt numb.

“Hey,” I said, smiling at Alice.

She didn't say anything in response. I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand and tried to keep smiling.

“How was the rest of your weekend?” I asked.

“Fine.”

A long silence.

“What about you, Reena?” I queried hopefully.

Reena Paruchuri and I had never even really spoken to each other before. She and Kristen would sometimes hang out in our dorm room, but Kristen made a point—and it seemed like she told all her friends to make a point—of pretending I didn't exist.