Night Road

Now, as she unlocked the great room’s series of wood-framed pocket doors and opened them wide, she could hear movement upstairs; the floors groaned and footsteps thudded through the house.

For once, Mia wasn’t hiding out from all that horseplay in the media room, she wasn’t locked in her bedroom, watching The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast or another of her Disney comfort movies. She was out on the beach, sitting on the sandy edge with Lexi beside her. A heavy woolen blanket wrapped them together; black and blond hair tangled together in the salty air. They’d been sitting out there for hours, talking.

Just the sight of it, of her daughter talking to a friend, made Jude smile. She had waited so long for this, hoped for it so fervently, and yet now that it had happened, she couldn’t help worrying just a little. Mia was so fragile, so needy; it was too easy to hurt her. And after the thing with Haley, Mia couldn’t take another friend’s betrayal.

Jude needed to learn a little bit about Lexi, just to know who her daughter was hanging out with. It was a parenting choice that had yielded good results over the years. The more she knew about her kids’ lives, the better mother she could be to them. She stepped out onto the patio. The breeze immediately plucked at her hair, whipped strands across her face. Without bothering to step into any of the shoes that lay cluttered outside the door, she walked barefooted across the flagstones, past the collection of dark, woven outdoor furniture. At the edge between the grass and the sand, a giant cedar tree rose tall and straight into the pellucid blue sky. As she approached the girls, she heard Mia say, “I want to try out for the school play, but I know I won’t get a part. Sarah and Joeley always get the leads.”

“I was totally scared to talk to you today,” Lexi said. “What if I hadn’t? It’s no good to be afraid of stuff. You should go for it.”

Mia turned to Lexi. “Would you come with me to tryouts? The other theater kids … they’re so serious. They don’t like me.”

Lexi nodded, her face solemn with understanding. “I’ll come. Definitely.”

Jude stopped beside her daughter. “Hey, girls.” She put a hand on Mia’s slim shoulder.

Mia grinned up at her. “I’m going to try out for Once upon a Mattress. Lexi’s gonna come with me. I probably won’t get a part, but…”

“That’s wonderful,” Jude said, pleased by this development. “Well. I better take Lexi home now. Your dad will be home in an hour.”

“Can I come with?” Mia asked.

“No. You have a paper due on Friday. You might as well get started on it,” Jude answered.

“You’re already checking the Web site? It’s the first day of school,” Mia said, her shoulders slumping.

“You need to stay on track. Grades matter in high school.” She looked down at Lexi. “You ready?”

“I can take the bus,” Lexi said. “You don’t have to drive me.”

“The bus?” Jude frowned. In all her years of parenting on this island, she had never had a child make that offer. Most said they could call their moms; none ever offered to take the bus. Where would one even catch a bus around here?

Lexi unwound herself from the red and white striped wool blanket. When she stood up, it slumped to the sand. “Really, Mrs. Farraday. You don’t need to drive me home.”

“Please, Lexi, call me Jude. When you say Mrs. Farraday, I think of my mother and that’s not a good thing. Mia, go tell Zach I’m starting the drive. Ask him who else needs a ride.”

Ten minutes later, Jude started up the Escalade. Five kids shoved their way into the plush interior, talking over one another as they buckled up their seatbelts. In the front passenger seat, Lexi sat quietly, staring straight ahead. Jude admonished Zach and Mia to start on their homework and then drove away. The route was so familiar she could have driven it in her sleep—left on Beach Drive, right on Night Road, left on the highway. At the top of Viewcrest, she pulled into her best friend’s driveway. “Here you go, Bryson. Tell Molly we’re still on for lunch this week.”

He mumbled some kind of answer and got out of the car. For the next twenty minutes, she drove the standard route around the island, letting off one kid after another. Finally, she turned to Lexi. “Okay, hon, where to?”

“Isn’t that a bus stop?”

Jude smiled. “I am not putting you on a bus. Now, where to, Lexi?”

“Port George,” Lexi said.

“Oh,” Jude said, surprised. Most of the kids at Pine High lived on the island, and, really, the other side of the bridge was a whole different world. Geographically, only about three hundred feet separated Pine Island from Port George, but there were many ways to calculate distance. Port George was where nice, upstanding boys from Pine Island went to buy beer and cigarettes at the minimart, using fake IDs they made on old magic cards. There was all kinds of trouble in the schools there. She drove out to the highway and headed off the island.

“Turn there,” Lexi said about a mile from the bridge. “In fact, you can let me out here. I can walk the rest of the way.”

“I don’t think so.”

Jude followed the signs to the Chief Sealth Mobile Home Park. From there, Lexi directed her down a winding road to a tiny plot of land, overgrown with weeds and grass, where a fading yellow double-wide sat on concrete blocks. The front door was an ugly shade of blue and cracked up the middle, and the curtains inside were ragged and unevenly hemmed. Rust inched like caterpillars along the seams. Deep, muddy ruts in the grass showed where a car was usually parked.

Jude parked at the edge of the grass and turned off the engine. This was hardly what she’d expected. “Is your mom home? I hate to just drop you off. I’d actually like to meet her.”

Lexi looked at Jude. “My mom died three years ago. I live with my Aunt Eva now.”

“Oh, honey,” Jude said. She knew how it had felt to lose a parent—her father had died when Jude was seven. The world had become a dark and frightening place, and for years she’d been unsure of her place in it. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I know how difficult it must be for you.”

Lexi shrugged.

“How long have you lived with your aunt?”

“Four days.”

“Four days? But … where were you—”

“Foster care,” Lexi said quietly, sighing. “My mom was a heroin addict. Sometimes we lived in our car. So I guess you don’t want me hanging around with Mia anymore. I understand. Really. I wish my mom had cared who I hung out with.”

Jude frowned. None of this was what she’d expected. It did worry her, all of it, but she didn’t want to be that kind of woman, the kind who judged a person by his or her circumstance. And right now Lexi looked as beaten as any teenager Jude had ever seen. Everything about the girl radiated defeat; no doubt she’d been disappointed a lot in her life.

“I’m not like my mom,” Lexi said earnestly. The need in the girl’s blue eyes was unmistakable.

Jude believed her, but still, there was potential danger here. Mia was fragile, easily led astray. Jude couldn’t simply ignore that, no matter how sorry she felt for this girl. “I’m not like my mother, either. But…”

“What?”

“Mia is shy. I’m sure you already know that. She doesn’t make friends easily and she worries too much about being liked. She’s always been that way. And last year, she had her heart broken. Not by a boy. It was worse than that. A girl—Haley—befriended her. For a few months, they were inseparable. Mia was as happy as I’ve ever seen her. But the truth was that Haley had her sights set on Zach, and he fell into her trap. He didn’t know how it would upset Mia. Anyway, Haley dumped Mia for Zach, and when Zach lost interest, Haley refused to come to the house anymore. Mia was so hurt she stopped talking for almost a month. I was really worried about her.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I guess … because if you’re going to be her friend, she needs to know she can count on you. I’d like to know that, too.”

“I would never do anything to hurt her,” Lexi promised.

Jude thought of all the dangers this friendship could pose to her daughter, and all the benefits, and she weighed them, as if this decision were hers to make, although she knew it wasn’t. A fourteen-year-old girl could make her own friends. But Jude could make it easy for Mia and Lexi to stay friends, or difficult. What was best for Mia?

When she looked at Lexi, the answer came easily. Jude was a mother, first, last, and always. And her daughter desperately needed a friend. “I’m taking Mia into the city on Saturday for manicures. A girls’ day. Would you like to join us?”

“I can’t,” Lexi said. “I haven’t got a job yet. Money’s tight. But thanks.”

“My treat,” Jude said easily, “and I won’t take no for an answer.”

Three

2003

The last three years had both worn Jude down and sharpened her. She hadn’t known how terrifying life could be until the first time she handed Zach and Mia car keys and watched them drive away. From that moment on, she’d begun to be afraid for her kids. Everything scared her. Rain. Wind. Snow. Darkness. Loud music. Other drivers. Too many kids in a car.

She’d issued her kids cell phones and instituted rules. Curfews. Accountability. Honesty.

She paced when they were minutes late and didn’t breathe easily until they were safely in bed. She’d thought that was the worst of it, the freedom that came with a driver’s license, but now she knew better.

It had all been a prelude to this: senior year of high school. The semester had just begun, and already it was a pressure cooker, a Rubik’s Cube of deadlines and paperwork. College loomed on the horizon like a nuclear cloud, tainting every breath of air. Years of driving back and forth to sporting events, practices, play rehearsals, and performances was nothing compared with this.

On the wall above her desk she had two giant calendars, one marked ZACH and the other MIA. Every college deadline was written in red ink; every test date was in bold-face type. Jude had spent years studying admission statistics and reading about the various universities, gauging which would be best for her kids.

Getting into college would be a cakewalk for Zach. He had entered senior year with a 3.96 GPA and a perfect SAT score. He could go almost anywhere he wanted.

Mia was a different story. Her grades were good but not great; same with her SAT. Even so, she had set her heart on the prestigious University of Southern California drama school.

Jude had begun to lose sleep about it all. She lay in bed at night, going though admission statistics and criteria in her head until she felt sick. She was constantly figuring out how to make her daughter’s dream come true. It wasn’t easy to get one kid into an ultracompetitive school, and Jude needed to get two in. The twins had to go to college together; any other outcome was unthinkable. Mia needed her brother beside her.

And now, as if all that pressure weren’t bad enough, the word she’d been dreading had just been said aloud.