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The name Kioga conjured images of the family property high in the mountains outside of town that had once been famous as the summer watering hole of well-heeled New Yorkers. The camp had closed down a long time ago, but it still belonged to the family. Daisy had only been there once, last summer. She’d worked for her cousin Olivia, renovating the place for their grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary celebration.
“Daisy, why don’t you take a seat right here, between Sonnet and Zach.” Mr. Romano indicated a right-armed desk between a boy with light blond hair and an African-American girl who had supermodel cheekbones and a wicked manicure.
“Thank God,” Sonnet said. “Now I don’t have to look at him.”
“Hey,” Mr. Romano warned.
“Whatever,” Sonnet said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms.
Daisy expected the teacher to eject her—that would have been the procedure at her old school—but instead, he turned his back on her and went to write some reminders on the chalkboard.
“Kolache?” asked the kid named Zach.
Daisy realized he was speaking to her and holding out a golden-brown pastry on a napkin. Its fresh, sweet smell made her slightly nauseous. “Oh, that’s okay,” she said, taken aback. “I’ve already had breakfast.”
“Thanks.” Sonnet reached across the desk and snatched it out of Zach’s hand.
“Oink, oink,” said Zach.
“It speaks.” Sonnet nibbled at the pastry. “Maybe it can do some other tricks.”
“I’m working on making you disappear,” Zach said.
Daisy felt as though she was at a Ping-Pong match, watching them trade insults back and forth. She cleared her throat.
“I work at the Sky River Bakery,” Zach said conversationally. “Early shift. So every morning for fresh pastries, I’m your man.”
“We’ve all got to be good at something,” Sonnet said with a pitying glance in his direction.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good at making them and Sonnet is good at eating them, as you can tell by the size of that ass.”
“All right,” Daisy said suddenly, understanding why the teacher had placed her between these two. “Do we kill him now or wait until the bell rings?”
Sonnet shrugged. “The sooner, the better, as far as I’m concerned.”
Zach stretched, and folded his hands behind his head. “You need me, and you know it. You’d die of withdrawal symptoms if I didn’t bring you a pastry every day. You guys hear about the fire?” he asked, changing the subject. “Jenny’s house burned down.” “Bullshit,” Sonnet said.
“It’s not.” He held his arms wide, palms out. “Swear to God, I’m not making this up. It’s probably in the paper.”
Daisy listened with interest. She had a sort of crazy family tie to the bakery. It was owned by Jenny Majesky—she assumed this was the “Jenny” Zach was talking about. Jenny was the daughter of Daisy’s uncle Phil. So that made them cousins, though they were virtually strangers. “Is Jenny okay?” Sonnet asked. “Fine. I’m surprised she’s not with your mom.” “Jenny and my mom are best friends,” Sonnet explained to Daisy. “And my mom’s out of town at a mayors’ convention. She’ll be back later this morning.”
“Oh,” Daisy said. “Does she work for the mayor?” Sonnet took a bite of her kolache. “She is the mayor.” “Hey, that’s awesome,” Daisy said.
“Not for long,” Zach interjected. “My dad’s running against her in the next election.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that,” Sonnet said with airy confidence.
“He’s the city administrator and he’s saved the city a fortune. People love that,” Zach countered.
“Yeah, they love it when you cut services, like closing the municipal pool. What’s he going to close next, the library?” She finished eating the kolache and wiped her hands with a napkin.
Announcements crackled over the PA system, drowning the conversation. There was a meeting of the debate club after school. Ice-hockey practice and a 4-H Club sugaring-off party, which sounded wholesome, but Sonnet whispered that it was a chance for the 4-H’ers to go out into the woods, boil maple sap into syrup and get high while doing it. Then—Daisy couldn’t believe it—everyone stood up, turned to face the flag in the corner of the room and said the Pledge of Allegiance. The words came to her from some hidden well she thought she’d forgotten.
“Let’s have a look at your schedule,” Zach said.
Daisy spread it out on the desk and the three of them studied it.
“Whoa,” said Zach. “Calculus and honors physics? And AP English? What are you, a glutton for punishment?”
“I didn’t get to pick,” Daisy explained. “At my old school, I had to take five AP courses.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “It was a really hard school.”
“So you’re halfway through senior year, and they made you move to the boonies,” Sonnet said. “That’s harsh.”
“I begged my dad to let me stay in the city,” Daisy said, though beg was a euphemism for screaming fit. “I even said he could homeschool me, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Why not?”
“He claims he doesn’t remember calculus. And I was, like, fine, we’ll fail it together, because I don’t understand it, either.”
“Probably not the best way to convince him,” Sonnet said. “I’m surprised they even have classes for you here.”
Daisy decided not to tell her that technically, she probably had enough credits to graduate early. The only problem with that was, if she left school, then she’d have to get a life. And she was totally not ready for that.
By comparing notes, she discovered she had several classes in common with either Sonnet, or Zach, or both. Sonnet was some kind of accelerated brainiac. Though only sixteen, she would graduate with the seniors in June. And Daisy figured out that even though Zach and Sonnet teased each other, they were kind of into each other. But there was definitely a rivalry going on.
“It’s a little weird,” Zach agreed. “I can’t wait to get the hell out of here. My college apps have been in since October. What about you?”
Daisy stared down at her pristine, empty notebook. “I applied,” she admitted. The counselor at her other school had practically held her under house arrest, making her fill out applications. “I don’t really want to go to college,” she confessed.
Sonnet and Zach seemed to take it in stride. At Daisy’s old school, saying “I don’t want to go to college” had the impact of saying “I have an STD.” People stared at you, hiding their disgust behind pity.
And for Daisy, the most disgusted, pitying looks had come from her own parents.
Zach and Sonnet didn’t look pitying at all. Maybe at this school you weren’t considered a loser and a freak just because you didn’t plan on being a rocket scientist or Supreme Court justice.
So far, thought Daisy, the day didn’t totally suck. That was a surprise. Of course, they hadn’t even left homeroom yet.
The bell rang and everyone flurried into action, shuffling papers, stuffing backpacks and heading for the door. In the corridor, kids floated along like leaves in a stream.
Zach veered toward a classroom with French travel posters plastering the door. “Here’s my stop,” he said. “Find me at lunch.” He disappeared into a classroom.
“So, do you have a boyfriend?” asked Sonnet.
Boyfriend? Now, if Sonnet had asked her if there were guys Daisy hooked up with, she would have a different answer. “No boyfriend,” she said firmly. “Why do you ask?”
“Because Zach is totally crushing on you. He has been since the second you walked into homeroom.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“I don’t even know Orlando Bloom, but I totally know I would be his love slave until the end of time.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to be anyone’s love slave.”
Been there, done that, she thought. “And anyway, you’ve got him pegged all wrong. He’s into you, not me.”
Sonnet shook her head, corkscrew curls bobbing. “He hates me.”
“Right. He hates you so much he brings you a pastry every morning.”
“If you’re so smart, how come you’re not going to college?”
“I’m not sure of anything.” She experienced a tiny glimmer of warmth and found herself hoping this was the start of an actual friendship. “I like the name Sonnet,” she said, wanting to turn the topic away from herself.
“Thanks. My mom says she picked it because she didn’t want anything that sounded too ethnic. All my cousins on my mom’s side of the family are Lucias and Marias and so forth. Sonnet is just … weird.”
“Weird in a good way,” Daisy assured her.
“She once told me she was reading a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets when she went to the hospital in labor.” Sonnet’s velvety brown eyes softened with an expression Daisy couldn’t read.
“So your last name is Romano, like the teacher,” she remarked, looking at the name scrawled on Sonnet’s notebook. “Coincidence?”
“He’s my uncle Tony,” Sonnet explained. “My mom’s brother.”
They didn’t look related, Daisy thought, but she didn’t say anything. “What’s it like, being in your uncle’s class?”
“I’m used to it. There are a ton of Romanos in Avalon and half of them are teachers, so it’s kind of hard to avoid.”
“So you have your mom’s name, not your dad’s,” Daisy observed, hoping it wasn’t a touchy subject.
Apparently, it wasn’t. Sonnet answered easily, “My mom’s single. She never married my dad.”
“Oh.” Daisy didn’t know what to say to that. She was fairly certain “I’m sorry” wasn’t appropriate. She scanned the crowded hallway. “Is it my imagination, or are there three teachers on this floor named Romano?”
Sonnet gave a rueful smile. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are Romanos everywhere. Some people say that’s how my mom got elected mayor. She has eight brothers and sisters.
“So how about you?” Sonnet asked. “What are your parents like?”
Divorced was the first thing that popped into Daisy’s mind. “My mom’s originally from Seattle, but she got a summer job at Camp Kioga, where she met my dad. They married young and put each other through school—law and architecture. So it all seemed like it should work out, right? She got a job at a big international law firm and Dad started a commercial landscape design company. Then my mom’s best friend in Seattle got cancer last year and my mom had this epiphany. She said she was just pretending to be happy or some crap like that, and in order to be really happy she needed a divorce.” Daisy sighed. The whole situation just made her tired. Everything made her feel tired these days. “Which is really all right with me, since I’m practically out the door. My little brother Max—he’s eleven—is taking it hard.”
“So how did your dad wind up with you and your brother?”
“My mom’s working on a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In Holland.”
Sonnet turned out to be the perfect first friend to have at this school. They had two classes together, and Sonnet introduced Daisy to a bunch of other kids. Some regarded her with suspicion, but most were friendly enough. She felt a little overwhelmed, though, trying to keep everything straight. In history class, they were studying ancient ways of burial and they talked about a cairn, which was a pile of stones used to mark a burial site, and to keep scavengers from picking at the bones of the dead.
Lunchtime rolled around and Zach joined them. The cafeteria was vast, with tall windows that were fogged by steam from the big iron radiators. There were long Formica tables crammed with kids sitting in distinctive groups.
“Okay,” said Zach, “so here’s the deal. Over there are the jocks, and they’re fine, so long as you don’t mind talking sports until you want to puke. The big sports in this school are hockey and baseball. The table on the end—theater crowd. Dancers, actors, singers. The skater table kind of speaks for itself. Around here, skaters and snow-boarders are the same. Do you ride?”
“I ski,” Daisy said.
“You don’t rate with them, then.” He moved on, giving her a quick tour—Goths, nerds, Eurotrash, headbangers, gangbangers.
The oniony smell of cafeteria food made her feel queasy. She followed Sonnet through the line, picking only a fruit bowl and a bottle of seltzer water.
“Oh, man.” Sonnet looked at Daisy’s tray in dismay. “You don’t have an eating disorder, do you?”
Daisy laughed. “Believe me, that’s not a factor. I’m just not feeling too hungry at the moment.”
They sat at a table with an interesting, eclectic mix of people.
Zach went to get a refill and Sonnet propped her chin in her hand, studying Daisy intently. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Daisy nibbled idly at a bit of pineapple. No shit.
“I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. I mean, why would a girl, taking all college prep classes at the best school in the country, suddenly drop out her senior year and decide she doesn’t want to go to college?”
Still Daisy didn’t reply. There was nothing to say. Sonnet was like a buzzard, circling overhead, spiraling lower and tighter as she approached the truth.
Daisy told herself she’d better get used to being scrutinized and questioned. She was hoping she’d have at least a little more time to settle in at school, to let people get to know her and, she hoped, form a decent opinion of her before the truth came out, before everyone found out the secret she’d been holding under her heart.
Five
It was a Monday like no other, Jenny realized as she headed once again to the ruin at 472 Maple Street. She was back again, along with the fire investigator. Later in the week, the salvage operation would begin. She couldn’t imagine that there was anything to salvage, but Rourke swore she might be surprised.
As they got out of his car at the curb, she glanced up at him and caught her breath. She wasn’t used to being around a guy this good-looking. Staring at him had a strange effect on her. It was destroying her brain cells.
He noticed her look. “Something the matter?”
“I really don’t think I should be staying with you. At your house, I mean.”
“You’re staying. It’s the best idea for the time being, at least.”
“It’s embarrassing. People will talk.”
“That’s always been your problem, Jenny. Worrying about what people will say.”
An interesting observation, coming from him. “You mean you don’t care?”
“Do I act like I care?”
She thought about the women he dated. “I guess not. But I do.”
“Look, nobody’s going to think anything about this. You’re a disaster victim, I’m the chief of police. It’s a match made in heaven.”
“Cute.” She brushed past him and headed up the walkway to the ruins of the house. She used her booted toe to nudge at what had once been a wooden file cabinet. This was where she had stored her notebooks. As soon as she learned how to write, she had written all her secrets, all her girlish dreams, all her thoughts in spiral-bound notebooks, and she had stored them in the file. There was almost nothing left, just blackened pages that disintegrated at the slightest touch or sodden papers destroyed by water.
How will I remember? she wondered. How will I remember the girl I used to be?
