She looked around at the guest room with its plethora of throw pillows she’d tossed on the floor, its green-and-yellow color scheme, its dresser featuring a large arrangement of fake flowers that had never changed and were covered in dust. Slowly, everything came into focus and she remembered. Her mother was in jail. And she was at the Stricklands’, even though she and Nicole hadn’t been on the greatest of terms lately.
She’d kept that detail from her mother, certain it would blow over and her mother didn’t need to know. Now Violet rolled over and punched the pillow, regretting that decision. If she’d told her mom, maybe she would’ve arranged for her to go somewhere else. Maybe, Violet thought, she should find out when her dad would return home from his trip. Though she didn’t exactly love his new wife, he was family. And the Stricklands weren’t.
She got up and went to the door, intending to open it and find Nicole, or her mom, or someone who might know something she didn’t, new news that had happened as she slept. But voices on the other side stopped her in her tracks. Angry voices. She lowered her hand and stood frozen as she tried to figure out who was speaking and where they were standing on the other side of the closed door. After a few minutes of listening, she decided that it was Nicole and her mom, arguing about something. But she couldn’t understand why they kept mentioning Casey’s name, seeing as how Casey was away at college.
Casey Strickland was a triple threat. As in she was gorgeous, popular, and smart. Nicole had long ago given up trying to measure up to her; Violet and Nicole had had many conversations about that. Though Violet didn’t envy Nicole’s struggles with her sister, she did envy her having a sister at all. Standing there alone in that room, she longed for someone to go through this with, someone to talk to, to be by her side when her mother could not be.
Instead she just listened to Nicole and her mom arguing.
“They can’t both be here. It’s too much. I’ve got my first term paper due in Shupe’s class, not to mention rehearsals starting,” Nicole grumbled. “I don’t need this right now.”
“I know, honey,” Nicole’s mom said soothingly, “but how was I supposed to know that Casey would just appear on the doorstep twenty minutes after Violet arrived?”
“You didn’t have to let Violet come here. You didn’t have to say yes and be so helpful like you always are. You know things have been . . . weird . . . with us lately. Just that was going to be awkward even if Casey wasn’t here, too. You could’ve asked me first,” Nicole whined.
“I couldn’t very well say no. It’s a delicate situation.” Bess defended herself.
“It’s not delicate, Mom. Her mom’s a whore. And she’s in jail because of it.”
“Nicole!” Bess Strickland exclaimed, and then they were both silent, probably scared that the outburst had woken Violet. Too late, Violet thought. She was shaking, her heart beating hard in her chest as the word whore resounded in her head. She took a step backward, intending to sit on the bed and calm down. The floor creaked underneath her feet and she froze again, her heart hammering harder as she waited for Bess to throw open the guest room door or for them to continue the conversation. But the hall was silent, and she was left to decide how to go out there and act normal when life was anything but.
Casey
From her bedroom she could hear her mother and sister talking in what they probably considered hushed tones, the tension in their voices unmistakable as they discussed what to do about her and Violet Ramsey both unexpectedly dropping in on their little, orderly life. From down the hall and behind her closed door, she could hear only about every third word, but she could tell enough to know that her presence was neither well timed, nor welcome.
It was amazing to her how her family had so seamlessly filled the gap she’d left behind when she’d gone to college. She recalled her mother’s tears the day they said goodbye, her sister’s earnest insistence that it just wouldn’t be the same without her. And yet, they’d figured out a way to go on. Now she was a ghost, there to haunt them. And though she knew she couldn’t stay at school, she was starting to second-guess her decision to come home.
When the voices quieted and she was sure the coast was clear, she opened the door, uncertain what to do next. Nicole’s door was closed and music played on the other side. Something instrumental that sounded like the score to a movie. Her sister had gotten into theater toward the end of last school year, when she had decided to “try something new,” on a whim, as she said it, though Casey always suspected a boy was at the heart of it. Now Nicole talked nonstop about auditions and plays and acting schools. When the two sisters were on the phone together, they struggled to find something to talk about once they got past the latest news at home. Casey always had the sense they were both saying what the other expected, that in their own way, they were each playing a role.
The door to the guest room opened, and she blinked at the girl who stepped into the hall. Violet had been asleep when Casey had arrived earlier that day, walked into the kitchen, and interrupted her mother, who was on the phone with her father, venting over the “pickle” she’d been put in, having to take in Violet Ramsey when she knew Nicole “didn’t like that one bit.” Her father, in his aloof, fatherly way, listened politely for a moment, then told her mother he had to get back to work and they could talk more when he got home. Casey could hear his deep, resonant voice coming through her mother’s phone as clearly as if he were on speaker.
When Bess Strickland hung up and saw Casey standing there, she’d yelped in fright, clutching the phone to her chest, her eyes wide as she took in her daughter’s presence. She looked at her like she was trying to place her, like she was an intruder and not her own daughter. Casey shifted on her feet and said “Hi, Mom,” like it was a year ago and she’d just had early release and Bess had forgotten all about it, so caught up was she in her social activities and volunteer work. Yet it wasn’t a year ago. And Casey wasn’t that girl anymore. When Bess looked at her, it was like she knew that.
Now, standing in the hall, Casey must have looked at Violet the way her mother had looked at her, because the younger girl mumbled an apology and quickly closed the door again. “Wait,” Casey said, but Violet didn’t hear.
Casey glanced over at her sister’s door to see if she’d come out to investigate the noise in the hall, but it remained closed and Casey heard no movement on the other side. Satisfied that no one would see, she crossed the hall and quietly knocked on the door to the guest room, where Violet was hiding. Violet had to have heard what her mother and Nicole had been saying, and probably heard it crystal clear since she was just across the hall. She had to be lost and scared and lonely. And though they were dealing with two completely different things, Casey felt more drawn to Violet than to her own mother or sister. She, too, felt lost and scared and lonely.
After her mom had gotten over the shock of Casey’s arrival, Bess had relayed what had happened with Violet’s mother, spilling what news she’d gathered and, Casey suspected, embellishing some details in places where the actual truth was thin. Her mother was energetic as she spoke, seeming to draw energy from Norah Ramsey’s plight. Though they were no longer close friends, Bess Strickland still pretended to like Norah Ramsey, to care about her.