Page 22 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
ONCE THE SEAL OF OURfriendship breaks, we become inseparable. At recess, rather than partake in the twistedLord of the Flies–style politics of the rest of the kids, we walk. We carve massive circles around the playground, and as we walk, we talk. It’s no longer just me talking. Manuel joins, too. And once he does, he has a lot to say—both in English and in his native language.
Our voices run at a dead sprint. He calls me Beck, and I call him Valde. We make jokes, tell stories. The stories never reach their conclusions, because some detail in them reminds us of another story and another and another, until we veer so far off track we can barely see the place we began. But we circle back, always saying,Now, what were we talking about?And we laugh at ourselves—breathless, mystified chuckles—baffled by our inability to stay on subject, awed by the great distance we traveled in doing so.
We have so much to tell each other. Two childhoods spent on different continents. Ten years of stories and details. We speak with this frantic energy, as if we’re both keenly aware of the finite nature of new friendship. As if desperate to cram as much of ourselves into each other’s ears as possible.This is who I am!we seem to say.Can you see me? Can you see?
—
WE START RIDING THE BUStogether. It picks me up first. When I get on, I run straight to the last seat. At Manuel’s stop, I stand. I catch his eye the minute he gets on. It isn’t necessary, of course; he knows where to find me. But I do it anyway. I like the way his eyes expandand brighten when he sees me, just a little, just around the edges. It’s the best part of my morning.
He runs to the back, and I step out to let him scoot in. The bus rumbles toward school, its wheels catching every bump, every crevice. With each bounce, our stomachs plummet in that terrifying way that tells us we’re alive.
9
NOW
AFTER DINNER, I TOOK MYusual place washing dishes at the left-hand kitchen sink. (We had two of them, of course, because what wealthy family can get by with only one sink?) My feet carried me automatically there, as if three days had passed since I last visited the island, not three years.
Unfortunately, I didn’t consider the fact that the same could be said for Manuel.
Twenty seconds after I arrived at the sink to wash, he appeared at my side, rag in hand, ready to dry.
“Hi,” he said, one side of his mouth curving up into a tentative smile.
“Uh,” I said eloquently back.
He held up the rag. “Shall we?”
“I should…” I glanced around the kitchen, searching for a way out. It appeared to me in the form of two unopened cans of baked beans. I snatched them off the counter and waved them in Manny’s face. “Put these away!”
Then I turned around and sprinted toward the pantry before I could hear his response.
The pantry was a huge L-shaped room lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves of canned and dried goods. Sacks of flour sat in one corner. Crates of wine in another. Around the bend and just out of sight were not one butthreefreezers, in which we kept all manner of frozen meats and vegetables and ice cream. The giant room was just another reminder of how excessive my family could be.
I slipped quietly inside and darted over to the left-hand wall, sliding the cans onto a free shelf. Exhaling softly, I stepped forward and laid my forehead on a cushion of cereal spines. It was only then, half-ready to fall asleep upright with nothing but a box of Rice Chex for a pillow, that I heard my sister’s voice.
“…that you have to tell her eventually,” Karma was saying, her voice hushed. From the sound of it, she was just around the bend, standing in front of the freezers. “She has a right to know.”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know,” came the response. It was my mother’s voice, speaking at full volume—though she probably thought she was whispering. “We only just got her back.”
I stiffened, my eyes flying open.Are they talking about me?
Karma snorted. “We’re on anisland, Mom. What’s she going to do, swim back to New York?”
Yep. Definitely me.
“That’s not the point,” Mom insisted. “I’ve worked so hard to make this a perfect week for Taron and Helene. Why do you want to spoil that with meaningless drama?”
“Meaningless drama,” Karma repeated flatly. I could just picture her face: eyebrows raised, lips pursed, staring at Wendy with the bemused disdain she reserved only for incompetent bakery interns and our mother. “I think Caleb would take serious offense to that.”
Caleb?What the hell were they talking about?
“This isn’t about Caleb. It’s about making sure that everyone has a nice time up here. And we can’t go telling Eliot something like this right after she got here.”
“But everyoneelseknows,” Karma said. “How do you think she’ll feel when she finds out that she was the last one to know?”
Wendy sniffed. “She’s the one who chose to disconnect from our family.”
“I know, but—”
