Always You Read online

  “This feels like quitting,” Lizzie said finally, with another whack of books. “It is quitting. Generally quitting feels like quitting, so that’s why this feels like quitting. Because we quit.”

  “We didn’t quit.”

  “We shouldn’t have given in so easily.” Whack.

  Anne laughed. “You think this year was easy on us?”

  Her friend stared at her, silent. Sometimes looking at Lizzie felt like looking in a mirror that reflected back the very best she could become. Both girls had long brown hair to their shoulders and dark eyes, but Anne had always wished for Lizzie’s posture and confidence. The way she held herself so that everyone looked to her. Not because she was beautiful and popular like Emma, or talented and semi-famous like Kat. Lizzie held every eye in the room because her expression held the sheer promise of greatness. If you trusted anyone to lead you, it would be Lizzie.

  Lizzie crossed the library toward Anne, eyes blazing with determination. “I should have kept protesting or done more media appearances. Maybe if we tried another staged protest. Maybe if we threatened—”

  “How will you become president if you’re on record as a domestic terrorist?”

  Lizzie crinkled her nose. “I hate failing.”

  “Good thing this isn’t about your feelings.”

  The two girls, once enemies and now friends, stared at each other for a split second before they let out short laughs. Lizzie turned to the nearest shelf, grabbed another handful of books, and set them in a box. “Enough about feelings. Get to work. You better not make me do all your packing.”

  Anne grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  They made fast work of the shelves and turned their attention to the paintings and fixtures.

  Lizzie turned to Anne and crinkled her brow. “Did your mom say anything about where you’re going to live?”

  “She mentioned a few places.”

  “Do you like any of them?”

  “What’s not to like about tropical beaches and international capitals?”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Anne carefully wrapped a small butterfly painting in newspaper. “I shouldn’t complain. At least we’ll have a home.”

  Lizzie rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t being a martyr get old? Why don’t you stand up for yourself for a change?”

  Anne bit her tongue and tasted blood.

  “Sorry,” Lizzie mumbled finally. She wrapped a cord around a glass Tiffany pinecone lamp and covered it with enough newspaper and duct tape to survive a drop from space. “I didn’t mean for it to come out that harsh.”

  Anne shrugged off the comment, but felt the sting of it beneath her sternum. It wasn’t as though she wanted to be a martyr. It wasn’t as though she got some kind of twisted enjoyment out of being miserable. She’d tried challenging her mother many times before.

  When she was eight, she had asked for a dog. She’d begged and begged, even while her mother said no, and when Lupe finally relented, Anne had been overjoyed. Until her puppy sent Mary into asthmatic shock. “See,” her mother had said as Anne kept watch over Mary’s hospital bed, petrified of the tubes and needles and vials that poked and prodded her sister to keep her breathing. “This is what happens when you don’t listen to your mother.”

  When she was nine, she’d wanted to visit her father over the summer in Bogotá. Her mother had cried herself sick over sending her away. The constant calls and check-ins had finally made her father frustrated enough that he’d sent Anne back after only four days. She had expected her mother to pamper and primp her upon her return, only to be ignored in favor of the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to cook with some renowned French chef.

  When she was ten, it had been riding lessons. The pony had not fared well.

  When she was eleven, a pop concert. It ended up cancelled entirely, and it felt as though the thousands of girls who had traveled from afar knew the blame lay at Anne’s feet.

  By the next year, she’d stopped fighting her mother. It was easier to give in. Kinder to let her mother have her way. Anne slept better. They fought less.

  Then she’d met Rick.

  Maybe she’d always known her mother wouldn’t let her have Rick. Maybe that was why she’d never asked. She’d kept him a secret when they had started being friends and that friendship had bloomed and blossomed into something more and then something more.

  But then one day he wasn’t a secret any longer, and instead of fighting her mother, instead of standing up for herself and for Rick, she had let him slip away.

  She realized it had been a few minutes since she’d heard a whack from Lizzie’s side of the library. She lifted her head. Lizzie was standing at the circulation desk where her mother had stood minutes ago. She was flipping through the pages of a hardback, but Anne couldn’t see the title, so she walked over and stood by her friend.

  Lizzie closed the book to reveal the cover: an image of a big-screen television set up on the beach in front of a crashing wave. She didn’t recognize the title or the author.

  “I wrote my freshman thesis on this book,” Lizzie said. “The book that redefined how I approached journalism, and they’re going to sell it.”

  “You could always buy it,” Anne said.

  Lizzie reached over the desk to grab a pad of Post-it notes—red ones. She ripped off the top one and slapped it on the cover.

  “Red?” Anne asked. “That’s for trash.”

  “Not anymore. Now it’s for steal.”

  At that moment, Fanny ran into the library as if she’d come straight from the track. Her black hair was gathered in a high ponytail that swished like a pendulum as she jogged inside. She flipped the buds out of her ears and stuffed them in the pockets of her running shorts. “What did I miss?”

  Lizzie tossed her the pad of red Post-it notes, which Fanny caught single-handed.

  “Slight change of plans,” Lizzie said.

  * * *

  All the girls were finally gathered in the library around the circulation desk. Lizzie had quickly taken charge by handing them each a red Post-it note and with no preamble, declared, “Everyone, come up with something to steal.”

  “You can’t make us steal something,” Emma said.

  “Make you?” Lizzie rolled incredulous eyes. “Don’t you want to steal something? Have you seen what’s happening to our school? Room by room, every piece of furniture and artwork, and even every book, is being disassembled and sold. That’s what the green tags mean. And the money from those sales? Back to the company that is tearing down our school and putting in a mall.”

  The girls were no strangers to Lizzie’s impassioned speeches, and they knew that once she got going there would be no stopping her.

  Lizzie looked slowly from one girl to the next. “We were supposed to graduate from the Academy. We were supposed to have another year of memories—our senior year—and it’s been stolen from us. Don’t tell me there isn’t something you want to keep. Some token, some little piece of this school you can’t bear to leave behind. It’s simple. They are taking the Academy away from us, but we’re going to keep one little piece of it for ourselves. So think long and hard about what you want to take with you.”

  Chapter Two

  “Who is this woman with the fate of our world in her hands?” Anne’s mother asked. She ducked to avoid a stray branch swiping across her cheek as they walked the path from the Academy to the headmistress’s cottage nestled in the woods behind the academic buildings.

  Anne stifled a cry at the question, not just because of its melodrama, but because there were two ways to answer.

  She’s an appointed member of the Board of Trustees for the Academy.

  Or…

  She’s Rick’s mother.

  If only her mom would even understand the significance of the latter. Her mother had known Anne was in love, but she’d never bothered to learn his name. Once she discovered the boy Anne loved was moving across the country to go to military school, she’d declare
d the relationship over.

  “Where is she from?” her mother continued. “Does she know anything of the local history? Hmph. Some stranger deciding the fate of our home—”

  “She’s not a stranger.”

  Her mother squinted in thought. Her patent high heels slowed their progress. “I don’t ever recall meeting a Sandra Wright. Was she a teacher?”

  “She used to be the produce delivery driver. She came in every day.” How else would Anne have met Rick, ensconced as she was on the grounds of what was then an all-girls boarding school? Maybe if he hadn’t been such a novelty. Maybe if she’d experienced love before, then she could have fallen for Rick and felt nothing once it was over. She could have moved on to another guy.

  No, that was a lie. She’d fallen for Rick for more reasons than because he was the first boy who’d talked to her, who’d paid attention to her.

  “Oh, yes.” Her mother snapped her perfectly manicured fingers. “The white van with the walking, big-eyed banana on the side.” She skittered to a stop, and disbelief pinched her features. “That woman? Who drove that truck? She’s the one the Board determined was qualified to make recommendations on the historical integrity of our home?”

  “Mom, come on.” Anne tugged her mother’s arm. “Does it matter?”

  “I expected they would send someone with a degree in architecture or knowledge of art and history or expertise in preservation. What qualifies her to make these decisions?”

  “I don’t know, but she’s on the Board.” She softened her voice at her mother’s silent pout. “They get to decide what stays and what goes when they put in the mall. We don’t. Who cares who they send to represent them?” Would it have been worth explaining to her mother how Rick’s mom was no longer a delivery driver? That she’d inherited wealth beyond even the Escobars’ holdings? It would probably change her mother’s opinion, but it shouldn’t, so Anne kept her lips pressed tight. The last thing she wanted to see was her mother sucking up to Sandra Wright. To feel the shame of it, given how they had treated Rick years ago.

  They could both see the headmistress’s cottage now, its red roof peeking up between the branches.

  “Please, Mom. Just a few more steps.”

  Her mother’s bony, pale fingers, weighed down by jeweled cocktail rings, clenched and unclenched at her sides. “This is all so tiring, this walking.” She looked away from the cottage, her limpid brown eyes dewy at the edges. “You can take care of it, can’t you, Anne? You’ll stay with that woman. Make sure she knows what’s important.”

  “Don’t you want to make sure I get it right?”

  Her mother let out a soft laugh. “You always get it right.”

  Only that wasn’t true. Anne never felt like she got anything right. She hadn’t saved the Academy, didn’t even want to follow in her family’s footsteps to run it, had no desire to uphold the Escobar tradition of blazing entrepreneurial trails through new industries.

  Her mother’s eyes darted to the cottage and back. “I just forgot that I have to call your father. It’s been days since we spoke.”

  “But the tour?”

  “Surely you understand, Anne. It’s hard enough wrangling him into a conversation, and we have to discuss Mary’s care.”

  Anne tugged her mother’s hand harder so that she stumbled forward with reluctant steps.

  “At least say hello,” Anne begged. “They need to see how important this is to you.”

  “Maybe a cup of tea,” her mother said weakly. “But only a moment—”

  Her mom’s sharp intake of breath made Anne stop in her tracks. Her mother was staring at the front of the house, her lower lip quivering. Anne followed her gaze to the gold-plated plaque bolted to the brick at the front of the house. It read KATHERINE BERG, HEADMISTRESS.

  Anne didn’t understand why the sight of it should upset her mother. While the cottage had been one of their homes, it had been Anne’s sanctuary more than a full-time residence. Anne had often locked herself in the cottage during lunch breaks and weekends, before she’d made friends with Lizzie. Her mother had always been more likely to be found on the coast of Ibiza or at a spa in the Berkshires, ignoring most of the daily running of the Academy.

  That was the reason Lizzie had amassed such ammunition against her family during her tenure as a reporter with the Jane Austen Academy Gazette. It was definitely the reason the Academy had run into the financial problems that had led to its needing to be sold. And while Anne would never voice it out loud, it was the reason her grandmother seemed so disappointed in them at family gatherings.

  She’d always assumed her mother didn’t care for the Academy at all. But the way her mother’s lashes fluttered, wet with teardrops, made Anne’s heart ache. Lupe was always so vivacious and happy. It was hard not to be when your greatest worry was whether you should have bought the latest cashmere sweater in every color or just one. Seeing Lupe upset, even if it was her own fault, was as surreal as seeing a mangled unicorn: you only wanted the creature to be happy and beautiful, no matter what.

  Anne rubbed her mother’s shoulders. “I’ll take care of it. Give Dad my love.”

  Her mother pulled her into a hug. Anne could smell a new perfume, dark and floral. Her mother’s pointy shoulders dug into her forearms. Hugging her mom was like showering a cat, all claws and sharp points. But she still tried, as though she could recapture that elusive cocoon of warmth she remembered as a child. “Don’t let anyone boss you around, Anne. Your blood runs deeper in these mountains than most. No one should tell you what to do.”

  * * *

  After walking her mom back to her car in the parking lot, Anne was late for the meeting with Rick’s mother and Headmistress Berg. She sprinted through the Academy and back to the trail. At times like these, she wondered how Fanny could run so fast and still look refreshed at the end of it. By the time Anne arrived back at the cottage, sweat was pouring down her forehead. Her blue boatneck sweater stuck to her chest and lower back. The wool was scratchy at her armpits. She wanted to rip off her tartan wool skirt.

  She knew her classmates saw her as “polished.” Her mother insisted on buying the best designer clothes and having everything tailored. Even though Emma was the fashionista in their close-knit group of friends, the blonde accomplished it with an eclectic and personal mix of high-end quality and low-end steals. Not Anne. Every article of clothing she owned had been painstakingly styled by one of her mother’s wardrobe consultants.

  If only her friends could see her now. A total sweaty mess coming to a dead stop at the front door. She would have laughed, but didn’t have enough air and ended up coughing. She rested her hands on her knees and bent over, heaving in a breath.

  Even though she hadn’t knocked, the door opened. Anne straightened on a gulp.

  Headmistress Berg studied her with a critical sharp eyebrow and thinly pursed lips. Her red hair was severely knotted at the nape of her neck. Her fingers toyed with the white pop-up collar that peeked from her fish-scale velvet dress. “Just you, then?”

  Anne wiped her wet brow. “Yes, just me.”

  “Surprise,” she said in a tone that was anything but. There was no love lost between Anne’s family and Headmistress Berg, who had practically stabbed them in the back to obtain her position. Not that it had done her any good, given that the Academy was closing.

  After a heavy pause, the headmistress opened the front door another inch, and Anne squeezed inside.

  The house smelled different from the way she remembered. She’d noticed it at the beginning of the year when she first came back to the cottage. She used to leave the windows open so her home smelled like the forest, earthy and mossy. But Headmistress Berg always had the doors and windows shut tight, baking in the smell of musty old books.

  It was a small change, but it may as well have been police tape keeping her from crossing the barrier. Anne waited in the foyer by the umbrella stand and the coat rack with its antler-like hooks. It was an original antique piece that
had come with the cottage. No one knew that along the back of the coat rack, facing the wall, Anne’s growth through the years had been chalked off at annual intervals. Her mother had measured her height every year on her birthday before braiding her hair and baking a funnel cake. That was before her mother’s fashion business had taken off, and for fashion her mother had needed to be in Los Angeles and Milan and New York.

  Anne was tempted to spin the coat rack around to see if the marks were still there. Only years of practice and poise kept her from shifting her feet or wringing her hands. She kept her chin high and her back straight.

  She heard someone moving in the neighboring dining room. A chair was pulled back. Ice cubes clinked together. Then a voice—his mother. “Is that Rick?”

  Anne froze, terror seizing her weakened limbs. Rick? Rick was here? Or on his way? She glanced around frantically for a mirror. Her mother had kept one in the foyer so she could check how she looked every time she left the house, but Headmistress Berg had moved it.

  “Bathroom,” Anne managed.

  “I believe you know where it is,” Headmistress Berg said before strolling down the hall to the dining room to join Rick’s mother.

  Anne ran to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She whirled around and set her hands against the sink. She was gross. Sweaty. Her hair was mussed, and black eyeliner streaked down her cheeks. She smelled like body odor. She couldn’t see Rick this way. She spun and leaned against the sink.

  She was being dumb. What did it matter what she looked like or how she smelled? Rick didn’t want her anymore. He’d made that abundantly clear since the beginning of the school year, when he’d left the military academy and returned to Merrywood to care for his mother in her battle with cancer.

  Rick never looked at Anne. Never returned her smiles or sneak peeks. She’d even been in his home, and they’d overnighted at her beach house and Emma’s place. There had been dozens of opportunities. She’d all but thrown herself into his impassive arms.