Chapter 10
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Remind me where I belong.
Clara
“Are you late yet?” Mom asks the second I pick up the phone.
Incomprehensible dread soars into my stomach. Here it is. Thenight. And my mother’s voice. And a sheet of frog and bunny stickers resting before me while I pull together a plan for the next day’s meals. Charcuterie boards tomorrow night, while the fruit is fresh. Pot stickers and rice noodles the night after.
Just think about food.
Just think about food, and don’t lose the warmth of today to the shadows…or to your mother.
“Late?” I ask.
“Your period, stupid,” she says. “Are youpregnantyet? You’re not home yet, so for reasons unknown, he’s not gotten tired of you.”
In the background, my father says, “It’s the chest. That King guy is probably still mapping parts of it.”
“Shut up, Gregory,” Mom snaps. “That talk is not funny with me, and it’scertainlynot funny about your daughter.”
Most of me shrinks, save the obvious, which I hide behind a pillow and wish would go away.
A door shuts wherever Mom is, and she mutters, “Your father has no sense of decorum sometimes. You haven’t answered me. Period. Late. Is it?”
I really don’t want to answer, but I say, “It hasn’t started yet,” as though there’s a chance it won’t, when it absolutelywill, assuming I get roughly three or four more bunnies on my calendar.
Mom chuckles, chipper. “Excellent. There’s still hope, then. You don’t suppose you could convince him to marry you once you’re pregnant, do you?”
I do not suppose I will be pregnant, so I do not suppose convincing him to marry me is possible once I am, no. I say, “I don’t know.”
She sighs. “Why can’t you take more initiative, Clara? You’ve been there, what? Three weeks? How many autographs have you asked him to sign? I know you haven’t sent me a single one. I could be auctioning those off and making a killing. But, no, you don’t care about your mother. You only care about yourself.”
Don’t be selfish.
My muscles constrict. “I’m sorry. I don’t have a vehicle. Their property is huge. I don’t know where the mailbox is. I’m not sure how to ask him for an autograph without him thinking I’m taking advantage of him.”
“You’re stupid, Clara.”
Sand. My roots haven’t been in sand for a while. I…canfeelthe difference.
“Can’t you figure something out? Ask him to sign your bra, play to his ego. It’s not hard. Men are idiots.”
I don’t know how to feel about the picture of Lukas signing my body. I don’t hate it nearly as much as I think I should. Under…less intimate terms, I don’t think he’d hate it, either. The way I feel right now almost makes me wish I could look down at his signature on my hand and know he doesn’t think I’m stupid…because he thinks I’mhis.
I whisper, “I’ll see what I can do, Mom.”
“Good girl. I’ll be waiting then.” Her tone hardens. “Don’t make me wait long.”
Before I can reply, she hangs up…and as if on cue, the peaceful melodies of Lukas’s piano trickle past the wall behind me.
Feeling sick, I gather myself and my pillow up, abandon my phone, and dare to trace my way across the floor to my bedroom door. I’ve never been in Lukas’s room before. I’ve never once considered it would be appropriate.
I’ve worried that breaching the sanctity would lead to a bunny-free day…
But now, I’m knocking. In my pajamas. Without a plan.
