My Life Next Door

“Am I?” He stops kicking the dirt and advances, heat radiating from his body, hurt from his eyes. “You sure about that? Seems as though the closest I get is your roof—or your room. Sure you’re not just…I don’t know…slumming?”

“Slumming? By seeing my next-door neighbor?”

Jase looks at me as though he wants to smile, but can’t. “You’ve got to admit, Sam, your mom wasn’t exactly looking at me in a neighborly way. Not like she wanted to send over a casserole or something.

More like a restraining order.”

Relieved that he’s joking, I take off my helmet. “It’s my mother, Jase. Nobody’s good enough for me. In her mind. My first boyfriend, Charley, was a deviant sex fiend who wanted to use me and discard me.

Then Michael, that emo guy you saw, he was a druggie loner who was probably going to lure me into addiction and then go assassinate a president.”

“You’d think I’d look good by comparison. But I guess not.” He winces.

“It was the motorcycle.”

“Oh yeah?” Jase reaches out to take my hand. “Remind me to wear Joel’s leather jacket next time.” He gestures toward the bushes at the end of the cul-de-sac, away from the seesaw and the monkey bars and rusty swings. McGuire’s a town park all neatly laid out, nothing left to chance, but once you leave the playground behind, the grassy hill slowly dips low through the cluster of low wild-raspberry bushes into a long labyrinth of stones that lead into the river. You can leap from one to another and wind up sitting on a large flat granite rock, well out in the water.

“You know about the Secret Hideaway?” I ask.

“I thought it was just mine.” He grins at me, a little reserved, but still a grin. I smile back, thinking of Mom. Smile, Samantha. No one needs to prompt me now. We brush through the tangle of bushes, swatting the tiny thorns away from our faces, then jump, stone by stone, out to the raft-like rock in the river. Once there, Jase sits, knees up, arms around them, and I land next to him. I shiver, remembering how much cooler it always is with the breeze blowing up river. Without a word, he takes off his hooded sweatshirt and hands it to me. Afternoon light pours down, the river smell surrounds us, warm and brackish. Familiar and safe.

“Jase?”

“Uh-huh?” He picks up a stick lying on the rock and hurls it far out into the water.

“I should have told her sooner. I’m sorry. Are we good?”

For a moment he doesn’t say anything, watching the ripples eddy wider and wider. But then: “We’re good, Sam.”

I lean back, flat on the rock, looking up at the deep azure sky. Jase lies down next to me, points.

“Red-tailed hawk.”

We watch the hawk circling for a few minutes, then he reaches over and takes my hand, squeezes it, and holds on. The river sighs around us, and the little gears in my body that were spi

Chapter Thirty

It’s good we have those moments, because the second I walk into the house I can feel fury rolling off Mom like fog from the sound. I could hear the vacuum cleaner growling before I even opened the door, and when I do, she’s chasing it around the house, jaw set.

The door closes and she jerks the plug out of the wall, turning to me, expectant.

I’m not going to apologize as though she’s right and I’ve done something unforgiveable. That would make what I said to Jase a lie. I’m not lying to him anymore, even by not telling the whole truth. Instead I stride to the fridge and pull out the lemonade.

“That’s it?” Mom says.

“Want some?” I offer.

“So you’re just going to be nonchalant about this? As though I didn’t see my underage daughter get on a motorcycle with a stranger.”

“He’s not a stranger. That’s Jase. From next door.”

“I’m well aware where he’s from, Samantha. I’ve spent the last ten years putting up with that unkempt yard and that loud, enormous family. How long have you known this boy? Do you often ride off on his motorcycle to God knows where?”

I swallow, take a slug of lemonade, and clear my throat. “Nope, that was a first. It’s not his motorcycle, it’s his brother’s. Jase is the one who fixed your vacuum cleaner when you threw—when it broke.”

“Will I be getting a bill for this?” Mom asks.

My mouth falls open. “Are you kidding? He did that to be nice. Because he’s a good person and I asked him. He doesn’t want your money.”

Mom tilts her head, studying me. “Are you seeing this boy?” The words that spill out are braver than I am, but not quite brave enough. “We’re friends, Mom,” I say.

“I’m seventeen. I get to pick my own friends.” This is the kind of argument Tracy, not me, has with Mom.

When I used to listen to them fight, all I wanted was for my sister to be quiet. Now I understand why she couldn’t be.

“I don’t believe this.” Mom reaches under the kitchen sink, pulling out a can of Ajax and sprinkling it on the spotless countertop. “You’re friends? Exactly what does that mean?” Well, we’ve bought some condoms, Mom, and sometime soon… For a moment I want to say it so badly, I’m afraid it’ll just tumble out.

“It means I like him. He likes me. We like spending time together.”

“Doing what?” Mom lifts the carafe of lemonade and wipes away the circle of condensation beneath it.

“You never ask Tracy that about Flip.”

I’ve always assumed that was because she didn’t want to know the answer, but now she says, in the same tone in which one would say “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” “Flip’s from a good, responsible family.”

“So’s Jase.”

Mom sighs and walks over to the side window that overlooks the Garretts’ lawn. “Look.” Duff and Harry are evidently fighting. Duff’s waving a toy light saber menacingly at his younger brother, who, as we watch, picks up a plastic bucket and throws it at him. George is sitting on the steps sucking on a Popsicle, without pants. Mrs. Garrett’s feeding Patsy, holding out a book she must be reading aloud.

Jase has the hood of the Mustang up, tinkering away.

“So what?” I say. “He has a big family. Why is that such an issue for you? What does it matter to you?” Mom is shaking her head slowly, watching them the way she always does.

“Your father came from a family just like that. Did you know that?” He did. That’s right. I think of the pictures, crowded with people, in that box Tracy and I opened so long ago. Were those his family? I’m torn between grabbing on to this scrap of information with both hands and concentrating on what’s happening now.

“Just like that,” Mom repeats. “Big and messy and completely irresponsible. And look how your father turned out.”

I want to point out that I don’t actually know how my father turned out. But then…he left us. So I guess I do.

“That’s Dad’s family. Not Jase’s.”

“Same thing,” she says. “We’re talking about a sense of accountability here.” Are we? That doesn’t feel like what we’re talking about. “What’s your point, Mom?” Her face freezes, only her lashes fluttering, as I’ve seen happen during difficult debates. I can sense her struggling to contain her temper, summon tactful words. “Samantha. One thing you’ve always been good at is making choices. Your sister would jump in with her eyes shut, but you would think. Even when you were very little. Smart choices. Smart friends. You had Nan. Tracy had that awful Emma with the nose ring, and Darby. Remember Darby? With the boyfriend and the hair? I know that’s why Tracy got into all that trouble in middle school. The wrong people can lead you to make the wrong decisions.”

“Did Dad—” I start, but she cuts in.

“I don’t want you seeing this Garrett boy.”

I won’t let her do this—take away Jase like he’s an obstacle in her path, or mine, like the way she’ll sometimes just throw out clothes I’ve bought if she doesn’t like them, like the way she made me quit swim team.