When the voices quieted and she was sure the coast was clear, she opened the door, uncertain what to do next. Nicole’s door was closed and music played on the other side. Something instrumental that sounded like the score to a movie. Her sister had gotten into theater toward the end of last school year, when she had decided to “try something new,” on a whim, as she said it, though Casey always suspected a boy was at the heart of it. Now Nicole talked nonstop about auditions and plays and acting schools. When the two sisters were on the phone together, they struggled to find something to talk about once they got past the latest news at home. Casey always had the sense they were both saying what the other expected, that in their own way, they were each playing a role.
The door to the guest room opened, and she blinked at the girl who stepped into the hall. Violet had been asleep when Casey had arrived earlier that day, walked into the kitchen, and interrupted her mother, who was on the phone with her father, venting over the “pickle” she’d been put in, having to take in Violet Ramsey when she knew Nicole “didn’t like that one bit.” Her father, in his aloof, fatherly way, listened politely for a moment, then told her mother he had to get back to work and they could talk more when he got home. Casey could hear his deep, resonant voice coming through her mother’s phone as clearly as if he were on speaker.
When Bess Strickland hung up and saw Casey standing there, she’d yelped in fright, clutching the phone to her chest, her eyes wide as she took in her daughter’s presence. She looked at her like she was trying to place her, like she was an intruder and not her own daughter. Casey shifted on her feet and said “Hi, Mom,” like it was a year ago and she’d just had early release and Bess had forgotten all about it, so caught up was she in her social activities and volunteer work. Yet it wasn’t a year ago. And Casey wasn’t that girl anymore. When Bess looked at her, it was like she knew that.
Now, standing in the hall, Casey must have looked at Violet the way her mother had looked at her, because the younger girl mumbled an apology and quickly closed the door again. “Wait,” Casey said, but Violet didn’t hear.
Casey glanced over at her sister’s door to see if she’d come out to investigate the noise in the hall, but it remained closed and Casey heard no movement on the other side. Satisfied that no one would see, she crossed the hall and quietly knocked on the door to the guest room, where Violet was hiding. Violet had to have heard what her mother and Nicole had been saying, and probably heard it crystal clear since she was just across the hall. She had to be lost and scared and lonely. And though they were dealing with two completely different things, Casey felt more drawn to Violet than to her own mother or sister. She, too, felt lost and scared and lonely.
After her mom had gotten over the shock of Casey’s arrival, Bess had relayed what had happened with Violet’s mother, spilling what news she’d gathered and, Casey suspected, embellishing some details in places where the actual truth was thin. Her mother was energetic as she spoke, seeming to draw energy from Norah Ramsey’s plight. Though they were no longer close friends, Bess Strickland still pretended to like Norah Ramsey, to care about her.
But Casey suspected her mother was jealous of Norah, though Casey couldn’t have guessed why. Norah was a single mom, when Bess had a devoted husband. Norah didn’t seem to have friends outside of work (which made more sense, in light of recent developments), while her mom was the queen bee of the mom squad. Casey had always thought of her mother’s friends as grown-up Mean Girls. Most of them were the mothers of her own friends, which accounted for many of the activities and decisions she herself had made while in high school. Now she wondered how life could’ve been different—how she could’ve been different—if that had not been the case.
In the six weeks she’d been away, she already saw it all differently. In her absence, her mother had pulled Nicole—who had never seemed to care before—into her orbit. But instead of social status and cheerleading like with Casey, now Bess cared about play competitions and lead roles. It didn’t really matter, in Casey’s opinion, what was at stake, just as long as Bess—and her offspring—won.
Casey knocked lightly on the guest bedroom door for the second time.
“Come in,” Violet’s voice said.
She opened the door to find Violet perched, awkward and uncomfortable, on the edge of the guest room bed that only Casey’s grandmother ever slept in. “Just wanted to make sure you’re OK,” she said. Casey gave Violet a fake smile, becoming for a moment the Casey that Violet expected. So much of Violet’s life had been upended, Casey didn’t need to add to it. “Would you like to go for a walk?” Casey asked.
Bess
She drove with one hand on the wheel and one hand on the casserole dish to keep it from sliding from the seat onto the floorboard of her massive SUV. How she longed for a tiny car, compact and zippy. Instead she drove the vehicle that was chosen and bought for her by her husband, the sort of car required for hauling kids and their paraphernalia. One day, she told herself. One day she would have a vehicle that matched her and not her
