CHAPTER ONE Samira
Samira Murphy was the first to admit, she was an OF: an overfunctioner. If shit hit the fan, she could be counted on to clean it up. She didn’t need help. She helped.
Yet, here was her guidance counselor, Mrs. Sandoval, peering at her with wide, sad eyes over her pink-rimmed reading glasses as if Samira were as helpless as a newborn kitten.
“I know your grandfather passed, suddenly and unexpectedly, this year,” she said in a low, mournful tone. “As I said before, I’m so deeply sorry for your loss.”
It wasn’t that sudden or unexpected. The doctors had warned that Grandad’s abdominal aortic aneurysm would burst. The advance notice didn’t make it any less of a gut punch.
Mrs. Sandoval adjusted her glasses. “You’ve had twenty-two absences this year. More than the student handbook allows.”
Well, yes. Between hospital visits, Grandad’s funeral, worrying about her brother, Kamron, and bad cramps, she had missed a few days of school here and there.
Samira gathered up her long, dark hair and twirled it around her finger. “Mrs. Sandoval, didn’t the pandemic prove attendance was optional when we could have done our work from a smartphone on a desert island?”
Mrs. Sandoval tapped Samira’s transcript with her glasses. “If you have another unexcused absence between now and the end of the year, you may not walk at graduation. You’ll have to go to summer school. And that could derail your admission to Lewis & Clark.”
What felt like little invisible mosquitos zinged her abdomen and the inside of Samira’s left knee, her autoimmune disorder going into overdrive.
Derailing her admission to Lewis & Clark would derail Samira’s dream of starting her own business, which her econ teacher had ignited after he said she had a flair for entrepreneurship.
Actually, he said she didn’t take direction well and would probably be better off starting her own business. But he had already inspired her million-dollar idea.
“I added my admissions deadlines to iCal and set up Siri with reminders. I uploaded my ACT scores to the College Board. I’m still on track to make the Dean’s List.” Samira nodded to the wall behind Mrs. Sandoval, on which a bright blue YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU banner hung. “Don’t worry. I’m responsible for me.”
She flashed a smile Grandad had labeled “the chomper,” wide and broad with a mouth full of blindingly bright teeth she had whitened at the mall kiosk with a half-price Groupon.
Just as her mouth began to tremble from the tension of maintaining that smile, a photo of Mrs. Sandoval’s Jack Russell terriers sporting San Francisco Giants kerchiefs caught her eye. Mom had taken her and her brother to a game a million years ago, back when they felt like a family.
Mrs. Sandoval let out a deep exhale. “I’ll let you slide for now. But again, no more unexcused absences.” She softened. “My door is always open, Samira.”
Samira’s face got warm and itchy with embarrassment when people—adults, especially—took pity on her. She stood up. “I have everything sorted. Really.”
Mrs. Sandoval looked at her with a cross between pursed lips and a half smile. She would have continued the conversation, stayed till the bottom of the ninth. But Samira was already halfway out of the ballpark.
* * *
Samira sat on the cool metal bench in the bus shelter at Old Redwood Highway and Third Street in downtown Santa Rosa waiting for the 44 South. Her head was pounding and her stomach gurgling. There wasn’t time to run across the railroad tracks to Aroma Roasters or even across the square to Starbucks for a snack.
She texted Tara: meet at my house for homework?? 20 mins, bring Larabars cherry pie
Within seconds, Tara texted back: omg yes, yes!!! see you there!!!!
The nose of the bus shimmered in the distance. Samira wasn’t wasting the money she had earned making acai bowls at Juice World over the summer on a car payment, gas, or insurance. She would need every penny—plus the $10,000 bond Grandad had left her and a student loan—for college. Her scholarship was generous, but it didn’t cover everything.
She had three weeks to cash in the savings bond, accept the student loan, and pay the $1,000 Lewis & Clark deposit before the first of May—as soon as she was certain Gran could get along without her.
If only Gran could master the banking app. Samira had set up all the bills to be auto-paid every month after Grandad’s pension and social security had auto-deposited. This damn thing, Gran said every time she could not seem to open the app or navigate to the bill-pay screen.
Then, of course, there was Kamron.
The Chihuahua on the corner of Victoria Lane yapped at Samira as she walked to the one-story ranch house Grandad had built fifty years earlier with its peeling avocado-green paint and white trim. “Gran, I’m home,” she called out. “Is Kamron home yet?”
Now that she had helped get her brother back into AA, Samira had to make sure he went to his meetings. Yes, she had taken on lots of adult responsibilities since Grandad passed, but she would rather take charge than leave an item on her to-do list undone.
She padded into the kitchen whose country wallpaper was covered in absurdly cheerful gingham bows and peony-filled flowerpots.
Gran was standing over a Crock-Pot. “No, he’s not home yet.”
Samira greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. “He has an AA meeting tonight.”
“Do you want some chili?” Gran asked. “It’s the one with my secret ingredient.”
Her “secret ingredient” recipes were … weird: crumbled goat cheese in her oatmeal, grated zucchini in her chocolate-chip cookies. Dr Pepper and soy sauce in her chili. But one of her strangest concoctions had hit #1 on Samira’s million-dollar-idea list: Tangy Tequila Lime Fudge, which Gran had accidentally invented when she mixed up the recipe for vanilla fudge with a boozy cupcake. Grandad said Samira would knock Mr. Wonderful’s socks off once she got on Shark Tank like her idol Tracey Noonan, the founder of Wicked Good Cupcakes, who had just sold her company for millions of dollars. Imagine what millions of dollars could do for their family.
The rice-paper skin around Gran’s cornflower-blue eyes was even more crinkled. Silver-gray roots were visible under her auburn rinse. She had aged ten years in the last year, after Grandad “croaked,” as he put it (Sami, when I croak, be sure to call the tree trimmers so the elms don’t get overgrown). If Mom had known he was going to die, she probably wouldn’t have left for her dream job teaching art up in Oregon, but now that she was there, Gran would never ask her to come back.
“Where did Kamron say he was?” Samira asked, her eyes narrowing with concern.
“I think he’s on a job today,” Gran said distractedly. “Somewhere in Windsor.”
If Kamron could hang on to his IT consulting jobs for more than a couple of months at a time, Samira wouldn’t feel so guilty about leaving.
“I’ll be in my room,” she said. “Send Tara back when she gets here.”
She stopped by the bathroom for her giant bottle of calamine lotion. A Benadryl would be better to battle back the invisible mosquitoes, but then she would sleep through her Spanish IV homework.
When she got stressed, they attacked, lying in wait for the opportunity to sting her forearms or calves. The little red welts itched for days afterward.
She had begged her mother to put her on steroids back in middle school when the doctor had first diagnosed her with an autoimmune disorder. Instead, Mom insisted that she see an acupuncturist. No way was anyone putting hundreds of needles all over her body. The Benadryl, at least, relieved the itch.
She had been under a lot of stress lately. In Social Dynamics class, where she had learned all about over- and underfunctioners, her teacher had cautioned OFs against “fixing everything around them” to avoid looking inward. As far as Samira was concerned, life as an OF was working out just fine. It was the underfunctioners around her she had to worry about.
u at work? she texted Kamron and set her phone down on her nightstand. She would not watch the home screen obsessively. If he didn’t text back right away, it didn’t mean anything. Necessarily. He could be in a meeting. Or on an important call.
Or in a bar.
She scratched the welt that had appeared on the inside of her forearm and managed to occupy herself for the next half hour studying future tense for her Spanish quiz; she didn’t look at her phone once until Tara pulled up outside.
No reply from Kamron yet.
Samira seized her phone, tapped Find My Friends, and pinpointed Kamron somewhere along Old Redwood Highway near Mark West Springs Road, which could be his job site.
Or could be Tommy’s Tavern.
And the invisible mosquitoes swarmed.
CHAPTER TWOHenry
Henry Owen scanned the ice, tracking the puck like a drone paired with its target. He checked the Mariners’ winger into the boards hard, slamming him up against the plexiglass. Their hockey sticks tangoed.
He gained control of the puck and circled around the back of the net, then fired toward his winger, Daniel, who was blasting down center ice in perfect position to receive Henry’s pass. Daniel sped toward the goal, got a slap shot off above the goalie’s left shoulder, and scored.
Henry’s stick shot up into the air. He would get the assist. There were only six more end-of-regular-season home games to boost his stats with his club team, the Ice Devils, and have a shot at freshman starter for the University of Denver.
Robert and Jeannie clapped politely, as if they were at a golf tournament. Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad. They had raised him since he was two years old. Why was it so hard to think of them as his parents instead of his aunt and uncle?
For starters, he looked nothing like them. Then again, he didn’t look like his bio-mom, Nancy, either, who sat two rows behind them, on her feet shouting, “That’s my boy!” She said Henry got his brown skin, hazel eyes, tousled hair, and the dimple in his chin from his dad. His bio-dad.
Most days, Henry thought about him at least once. Where was he? Why had he disappeared? And, most important, did he ever think about Henry?
If he passed a brown-skinned man with tousled hair who looked to be about his bio-dad’s age at, say, Sprouts, he had to resist the urge to follow him around like a lost puppy.
His girlfriend, Linh, sat next to Mama. She got the whole Mom/Mama thing right away, maybe because she had been adopted. Nancy, whom Henry called Mama, was his biological mom. Nancy’s older sister, Jeannie, whom he called Mom, and Robert were raising him.
Linh’s face was all sharp angles softened by a crooked smile. Her hair smelled like oranges because her mom stocked her bathroom with products made only from natural essential oils. Mama was probably talking her ear off, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was good with parents.
The coach signaled a line change. Henry skated to the boards and collapsed on the players’ bench next to Daniel, who squirted water straight to the back of his throat and fist-bumped Henry. “That pass was golden.”
“Thanks, man.” Henry mainlined his own water bottle.
Daniel removed his mouth guard, doused it with water, and stuck it back in. “You’ll make freshman starter for sure.”
“Or my dad will disown me,” Henry said with a half laugh.
When he was in juniors, he would have been psyched at the possibility of making freshman starter for a college team. But Robert had hounded him about it so much that Henry hadn’t even accepted admission to the University of Denver yet. He would. He just hadn’t gotten around to it.
Coach signaled another line change. The Devils were up four to three with two minutes and thirty seconds left to go in the third period.
Henry got the puck into the neutral zone. The Mariner he had shoved into the boards earlier made a run for the net. Henry skated after him, when suddenly, a stick crashed into his shoulder blades. He lurched forward right as the ref blew the whistle.
Cross-checking from behind was for bullies and cowards, Coach had said. Doesn’t give your opponent the opportunity to brace for impact. If there was anything Henry hated, it was a bully.
He spun around and slashed the Mariner across the waist with his stick. In an instant, they had both dropped their gloves. Henry grabbed the Mariner’s jersey with one hand while trying to knock his helmet off with the other.
Coach had warned him not to fight after the whistle. But at times like these, he wasn’t thinking about what Coach had said; he wasn’t thinking about anything, really. He was feeling. Adrenaline. Anger. Intensity. Something more than the nothingness that usually surrounded him.
He was now on top of the Mariner, pounding him through his pads. The refs tried to pull him off. All he could hear were his own muffled grunts until a voice finally broke through.
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