'Mother,' Antonia pleads.
Antonia has never experienced humiliation quite like this before. Mr. Frye is watching them as though their family is putting on a play. And he's not the only one. There's probably not another conversation going on in the entire restaurant. The better to hear the Owenses. The better to watch the sideshow.
'Can we just eat?' Antonia begs.
The waiter has brought over their order, which he tentatively places on the table. Kylie is doing her best to ignore the adults. She imagined her mother would be mad, but this reaction is in a whole other dimension.
'Aren't you starving?' she whispers to Gideon. Kylie expects Gideon to be the one sane person at the table, but as soon as she sees the expression on his face, she knows it's not food he's thinking of. 'What's wrong with you?' she asks.
'It's you,' he says, and it sounds like an accusation. 'You're all different.'
'I am not,' Kylie says. 'It's just my hair.'
'No,' Gideon says. The shock is wearing off, and he feels that a theft has been committed. Where is his teammate and friend? 'You're just not the same. How could you be so stupid?'
'Go to hell,' Kylie says, hurt beyond belief.
'Fine,' Gideon shoots back. 'Do you mind letting me out so I can get there?'
Kylie moves so Gideon can slide out of the booth. 'You are an idiot,' she tells him as he leaves, and she sounds so cool she amazes herself. Even Antonia is looking at her with something resembling respect.
'Is that how you treat your best friend?' Sally asks Kylie. 'Do you see what you've done?' she says to Gillian.
'He
'It has happened,' Sally says. 'Don't you see? It's over.' She searches through her purse for her wallet, then throws some cash on the table to pay for the uneaten food. Kylie has already grabbed a piece of pizza, which she quickly drops when she sees how grim her mother looks. 'Let's go,' Sally tells her girls.
It takes Ben Frye this long to realize that he has another chance. Sally and her girls have gotten up and Gillian is alone at the table. Ben walks over casually, just like a man whose blood hasn't heated up to a dangerous degree.
'Hey, Sally,' he says. 'How are you doing?'
Ben is one of the few teachers who treat Sally like an equal, even though she's only a secretary. Not everyone is so kind—Paula Goodings, the math teacher, orders Sally about, convinced she is some drone behind the desk, available to do errands for anyone who wanders by. Ben and Sally have known each other for years and considered dating when Ben first was hired at the high school, before deciding what they both really could use was a friend. Since then, they have often had lunch together and are allies at school meetings; they like to go out and drink beer and gossip about the faculty and the staff.
'I'm doing really poorly,' Sally tells him now before she notices that he's moved on without waiting for an answer. 'Since you're asking,' she adds.
'Hi,' Antonia says to Ben Frye as he walks past her. Brilliant, but it's the best she can do at the moment.
Ben smiles at her blankly, but he keeps right on going, until he's at the table where Gillian is staring at the uneaten food.
'Is there something wrong with your order?' Ben asks her. 'Is there anything I can do?'
Gillian looks up at him. There are tears falling from her clear gray eyes. Ben takes a step toward her. He is so gone, he couldn't come back if he wanted to.
'There's nothing wrong,' Sally assures him as she collects her girls and begins to troop toward the door.
If Sally's heart weren't so closed up at the moment, she'd feel sorry for Ben. She'd pity him. Ben has already sat down across from Gillian. He's taken the matches out of her hand—which has that damn tremor again —and is lighting her cigarette. As Sally leads her girls out of the restaurant, she believes she hears him say, 'Please don't cry,' to her sister. She may even hear him say, 'Marry me. We can do it tonight.' Or maybe she's just imagining that's what he's said, since she knows that's where he's headed. Every man who's ever looked at Gillian the way Ben is looking right now has made a proposal of one sort or another.
Well, the way Sally sees it, Ben Frye is a grown man, he can take care of himself, or, at the very least, he can try. Her girls are another matter entirely. Sally's not about to let Gillian arrive out of nowhere, with three divorces and a dead body in her recent history, to start playing around with her daughters' welfare. Girls like Kylie and Antonia are just too vulnerable; they get broken in two by cruel words alone, they're easily made to believe they're not good enough. Just seeing the back of Kylie's neck as they walk through the parking lot makes Sally want to weep. But she doesn't. And, what's more, she won't.
'My hair's not that bad,' Kylie says once they're in the Honda. 'I don't see what's so horrible about what we did.' She's sitting alone in the backseat and she feels so weird. There's no space for her legs at all, and in order to fit she has to fold herself up. She almost feels as if she could leap out of the car and walk away. She could start a new life and never look back again.
'Maybe if you think about it, you will,' Sally tells her. 'You have more sense than your aunt, so you have a better chance of understanding your mistake. Think it over.'
That's what Kylie does, and what it all adds up to is spite. Nobody wants her to be happy, except for Gillian. Nobody gives a damn.
They drive home in silence, but after they've pulled into the driveway and are walking toward the front door, Antonia can no longer hold her tongue. 'You look so tacky,' she whispers to Kylie. 'And you know what the worst part is?' She draws this out, as though she were about to utter a curse. 'You look like her.'
Kylie's eyes sting, but she's not afraid to talk back to her sister. Why should she be? Antonia looks oddly pale tonight, and her hair has turned dry, a bundle of blood-colored straw caught up in barrettes. She's not so pretty. She's not as superior as she's always pretended.
'Well, good,' Kylie says. Her voice is honey, so easy and sweet. 'If I'm like Aunt Gillian I'm glad.'
Sally hears something dangerous in her daughter's voice, but of course thirteen is a dangerous age. It's the time when a girl can snap, when good can turn to bad for no apparent reason, and you can lose your own child if you're not careful.
'We'll go to the drugstore in the morning,' Sally says. 'Once we get hold of a package of brown dye you'll look perfectly fine.'
'I think that's my decision.' Kylie is surprised at herself, but that doesn't mean she's about to give in.
'Well, I disagree,' Sally says. There's a lump in her throat. She would like to do something other than stand here—smack Kylie, perhaps, or hug her, but she knows neither of these things is possible.
'Well, that's too bad,' Kylie says right back. 'Because it's my hair.'
Watching all this, Antonia has a big grin on her face.
'Is this any of your business?' Sally says to her. She waits for Antonia to go inside before turning to Kylie. 'We'll discuss this tomorrow. Get in the house.'
The sky is dark and deep. The stars have begun to come out. Kylie shakes her head no. 'I won't.'
'Fine,' Sally says. There's a catch in her voice, but her posture is straight and unrelenting. For weeks she's been afraid that she might lose her daughter, that Kylie would favor Gillian's careless ways, that she'd grow up too soon. Sally had planned to be understanding, to consider such behavior a passing phase, but now that it's really happened Sally is stunned to find how angry she is.
After Sally goes inside, the door closes with a little hissing sound, then slams as it shuts. Kylie has been alive beneath this sky for thirteen years, and only tonight does she really look at all those stars above her. She slips off her shoes, leaves them on the front stoop, then goes around to the backyard. The lilacs have never before been in flower on her birthday, and she takes it as a sign of luck. The bushes are so lush and overgrown, she has to stoop to get by them. For her whole life she has been measuring herself against her sister, and she's not going to do that anymore. That is the gift Gillian has given her tonight, and for that she will always be grateful.
Anything can happen. Kylie sees that now. All across the lawn there are fireflies and heat waves. Kylie
