Saving Francesca

“Not just ‘some guy,’ ” I tell him. “The guy.”

We get home and Mia and Luca hold me so tight that I feel as if I can’t breathe, but in a way I’ve never felt so alive. My friends are still there and my dad lets them all stay the night, even Jimmy and Thomas. None of us get any sleep because everyone’s got a different account of the last fourteen hours, and they make it sound like a movie of the week.

“Brolin’s like, ‘Where’s Francesca Spinelli? I saw her in roll call this morning. She’s cutting, isn’t she?’ And he marches down to Qui

“That’s not true,” Siobhan interrupts. “She says, ‘Doug’—I’d change my name if it was Doug—she says, ‘Doug, Francesca’s going through some issues at home. Let’s just try to find her… .’ ”

“Trombal told Shaheen, who told Eva that Qui

The five of them have an argument regarding the truth.

“That’s not true,” Tara says. “Shaheen and Eva aren’t even speaking to each other at the moment.”

“What’s up?” Thomas asks.

I can’t get over how easily these guys get off track.

“Hello,” I yell over their voices as they discuss the Shaheen/Eva dispute. “It’s not about Brolin or Qui

Justine has her arm around me and I’m crying my head off while I’m telling them, and then I see Thomas roll his eyes.

“God, you’re uncool,” he says, “for even thinking that. Now can we stop talking about such trivia and talk about the real issues?” He makes himself comfortable on my bed and looks around with this stupid demented smile on his face. “So who’s sleeping with me?”

I lie in my mum’s bed, facing her, and I remember what Angelina said. That she’s not going to get better just because she gets out of bed.

“Are you and Daddy going to be okay?” I ask her.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because people grow out of people. You’ve known him for over twenty years.”

“I’ve known you for seventeen and I haven’t grown out of you and I never will. Why should it be different for Daddy?”

“Because I’m your flesh and blood.”

“Oh God, Frankie, I breathe in rhythm with that man. You think that’s not my flesh and blood after all these years?”

We hold on to each other and she looks at me closely, as if she hasn’t seen me for a really long time.

“When I was seventeen,” she says, “I just stopped speaking to my father for two years. I thought he was a peasant, some kind of idiot. I was embarrassed by how simple he was. I was such a bitch. But all I can remember now is his face—his beautiful patient face, waiting for his daughter to start speaking to him again. He never questioned what was going on and he never pushed, and I saw that as a weakness. But he was just waiting.”

Her thought process is written all over her face. It creases her forehead and makes her mouth look hard and twisted. I try to press it out with my fingers. If I just smooth out those creases, she’ll go back to normal.

“I grew out of it and that was because of your father. Seeing the world through Robert’s eyes is incredibly soothing, though I have to keep on pulling myself away, because I need to use my own eyes. But thanks to Robert, I saw No

One day I’ll ask my mum about that baby. If she already had loved it or what she imagined our lives would be with it around. And what’s missing in our lives without it. But for now I let her talk. I try to wipe her tears away, but there are too many.

“I just want to wake up in the morning and for the light to be on,” she sobs, “and I want to stop feeling like a success just because I can eat my toast and I want to be able to brush my teeth without throwing up and then when I get through all of that, I want to work at getting that look out of your eyes. That look of fear that I put there and I hate myself for that.”

“But when we’re happy, you put that look in our eyes as well. So you have to give yourself thousands of brownie points for that,” I tell her.

She lets me trace the scar on her stomach. The scar I put there when I was born.

“It’s because you were in such a hurry and I wanted to have you all to myself for just a little while longer,” she murmurs sleepily. “Even back then we were battling each other.”

When I grow up, I’m going to be my mother.

chapter 33

THE NEXT MORNING, I see Thomas, Jimmy, and Siobhan off in Tara’s father’s car. Justine is meeting Tuba Guy and opts for the bus.

“Tara’s driving is a nightmare, anyway,” she whispers in my ear.

We stand on the pavement, listening to Thomas and Tara squabble.

“How about we don’t turn all this into a tragedy and you let me drive, Tara?”

“How about no.”

“You mean yes/no or no/no?”

“You just want to drive in my father’s Commodore.”

“No. I just want to live until my next birthday. Is that too much to ask?”

“Is it too much to ask that you guys don’t argue the whole way home?” Jimmy says.

Justine is laughing and I’m loving the sound of their voices.

Siobhan sticks her head out of the window.

“I love youse.”

Thomas leans over and beeps the horn, and I see Tara slap his hands away.

They drive off and Justine kisses my cheek.

“I’ll ring you later. Maybe if my dad lets me, we can meet down at Bar Italia for a gelato tonight.”

“Cool.”

I watch her walk up the road, and then she disappears and my anxiety returns, just for a split second. And somehow I find myself ru

“Justine?”

She looks at me, surprised, as the bus doors open.

I’m trying to catch my breath because I don’t have much time.

“You’re my rock.”

The bus driver is telling her to get on the bus, but she’s just standing there, an I-think-I’m-going-to-cry look on her face. But I grin at her and she grins back.

She gets onto the bus and walks to the back, waving, and I stay there until the bus is out of sight.

I’m about to walk into the house when Will pulls up, so I stop and sit on the step.

He has a relieved look on his face, and I can tell he wants to go into a question frenzy. He squeezes in next to me and we don’t say anything for a moment or two.

“Promise me that there will never be another reason for that Tara Finke chick to call me?” he says, taking my hand.

I don’t want to, but I laugh, and he leans over and kisses me on the side of my neck and he keeps his face there for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “for that time I kissed you at that party and for that time at the wedding and more than anything for the thousand times that I wanted to and didn’t have the guts to.”

“And for cutting out next year.”

“It was always part of my plan. Before I met you.”

“But your decision about going came after you met me. That’s what I don’t understand.”

He runs his fingers through his hair, frustrated, confused, everything. “We’re supposed to be talking about you and how you’re feeling,” he says.