Free from the rush of getting ready for school in the morning. The rush of after-school activities. The rush of being somewhere at a certain time in a certain uniform. The rush of weekends spent driving from one game or activity to another.
Free from the arguments and yelling about screen time. Free from homework and school projects. Free from the terrible rush of negative adrenaline when she checked the PowerSchool portal and found that Luke had all those missing assignments.
Or when she dug in the bottom of Johnny’s backpack and found the dreaded red homework folder and realized that she hadn’t checked itall week.
What would it feel like to be liberated from all that?
Free from expectations and competition and labels. Who’s in advanced math? Who’s in the gifted and talented program? Who’sstarting? Who’s on the bench? Who has learning “issues”? Who’s “talented”? Who’s popular? Who’s not?
A beat-up Kia pulled up, and a young man exited with three boxes of pizza. Rosamund emerged from the backyard, paid him, and took the pizzas back to the kids. Then she returned to the porch and sat down beside them.
“Thanks for the pizza,” Kiersten said. “Let me know how much I owe you.”
Rosamund dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “Happy to help. We’ve had a rough day. And being with your kids back there ... well, it’s been nice for Guinevere.”
Kiersten turned to examine her neighbor more closely, and this time she noticed smudged mascara under her red-rimmed eyes.
“Are you all right?” Kiersten asked.
“No.” Rosamund’s shoulders slumped. “I am not.”
Chapter Seventeen
Kiersten
Kiersten laid a tentative hand on Rosamund’s arm. “Well, as it turns out, my front porch is the place to be if you’re having a bad day of epic proportions.”
“It’s my daughter’s birthday. She’s thirteen today.” A wistful tone laced Rosamund’s words. “And she invited four girls to her party. We got everything ready. And none of them showed up. They sent her this text instead.”
She raised her phone, showed them a photo of a text.
Kiersten squinted at the screen.Happy Birthday, Loser.She gasped. The casual cruelty of the words jolted her, like touching the electric fence back home. “Oh, Rosamund. I’m so sorry.”
Rosamund bit down on her lower lip. “Guinevere has always had a hard time fitting in. Probably because I saddled her with a name likeGuinevere.”
“This is not your fault,” Piper said gently. “But I’m sorry it’s happening.”
Rosamund gave her a wistful smile. “She’s a wonderful blend of sophisticated and childlike. Super smart. Reads all the time, but she can be a little ... socially inept. She’s not on the spectrum. Nothing with a diagnosis ... just different. You know,quirky. We had some issues with bullying last year. I thought that was behind us ... but it turns out, it’snot. It’s started up again. This time a boy is involved, and he’s meaner than the girls.”
Kiersten squeezed her hand. “We were just talking about how great it would be to drop out.”
It sounded so radical when she said it out loud. But maybe there was safety in numbers. She wouldn’t have the courage to do this alone, but if her neighbors joined in ... well, then maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all?
Rosamund frowned. “What do you mean by ‘dropping out’?”
“We quit everything. School. Sports. Activities. We drop out of the rat race,” Piper explained.
“We go back in time,” Kiersten added. “It would be like when we were young. Our kids would play outside. Roam the neighborhood unsupervised and play with firecrackers.”
“And no more iPads or phones or devices,” Piper added. “No more screen time.”
Rosamund’s mouth dropped open. “But what would you actuallydo? Homeschool?”
“We’d drink Tab and smoke Virginia Slims and go to Tupperware parties,” Kiersten said. “Isn’t that what moms used to do?”
Rosamund fixed her gaze on Kiersten. “I’m serious.”
“We hadn’t gotten that far yet,” Piper admitted. “We hadn’t gotten beyond dropping out.”
