Page 33 of The Ghostwriter

“I know she dated Dave Gunderson for like a second last fall. And then Pete Mayhew around the holidays. And then Vince,” I said. It seemed likea lot of guys to me, but I had only turned fourteen in March. What did I know about boyfriends?

“I meant her family,” Margot said, giving me a meaningful look. “Her mother isn’t exactly normal.”

My gaze bounced around my room, clothes hastily shoved into my closet, the sheer curtains covering my windows filtering the light, softening the pink walls I’d hoped to paint a more grown-up color this summer. I tried not to think about my own mother, hownotnormal she was when no one else was around. How she drank too much, then cried in her room. Some days she wouldn’t even get out of bed. But she always put on some lipstick and a bright smile whenever we had people over, as if she could paper over the cracks that everyone could see.

“I like Lydia’s mom,” I said. But the truth was, I’d only ever spoken to her once, when she came by to pick Lydia up. She’d given me her pretty smile and said,What a cute little thing you are!Which normally would have annoyed me but, coming from her, felt like a present bought just for me.

“My mom says she sleeps around,” Margot said, shaking her head in the same disapproving way her own mother did. “She called her a ‘man eater.’”

We both giggled at the phrase. “Maybe it’s not true,” I said, meaning that someone like Lydia probably knew how to not get pregnant. And yet.

Margot hesitated, as if she didn’t want to tell me the next part. “They also said it wasn’t Vince’s.”

I felt my body grow cold and I fought to keep my voice steady. To not show Margot how much that part worried me. “Did they say whose it was?” I asked, not wanting to know. But needing to understand.

“No.”

“If you had to guess,” I pressed. I glanced at the closed door, listening for sounds of my mother. Pretending to dust so she could eavesdrop, hoping to hear about my secret crushes or problems with friends.

“Maybe she got back together with Pete or Dave,” Margot suggested.

I shook my head. “Pete is dating Ginnie from the pep squad now and everyone knows she’s got him on a short leash. She even waits outside the boy’s bathroom for him to pee.” Margot snort-laughed and I continued. “Lydia doesn’t do anything except hang out here, run track, and go to school.” I looked up at her and said, “Wait. Who’s her lab partner in biology?”

Margot wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Charlie Carson and he’s a nose picker. No way.”

We fell into silence, each of us running through possibilities but coming up blank.

“Do you think Vince knows?” Margot asked.

I shook my head. Things were bad now, but they’d get a lot worse if he found out. “They fight about stuff, but I think I’d know if it was about a baby and an abortion.”

***

I sit in my room now, listening to the sounds of my family—my mother in the kitchen, making dinner; the thump of bass from Danny’s music—and reread the single sentence I’d written—I heard a rumor today. That Lydia was pregnant and now…she’s not—trying to imagine how this will play out. What this information will do to Vince, who already seems on edge.

Chapter 14

I sit on the floor next to the empty box, my mind racing. I count back from the date of the entry—May 6—and do some math. I suppose it’s possible my mother had gotten pregnant before she’d started dating my father in February of that year, but it would have been tight. It would have required her to wait a dangerously long time to get the abortion if so, and I know that wasn’t likely.

There’s so much about my parents I don’t understand. So much about them I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to unravel. What my mother saw in my father. Why she stayed with him when everyone else was certain he’d killed Danny and Poppy. I flip to the next entry, dated May 8.

Something’s on that film that Vince doesn’t want me to see. March #1, Clip #3

I turn the page, hoping for a longer entry, but Poppy seems to havedecided the diary might not be a safe place to write anything down. I make my way through the rest of her entries quickly.

May 10: I don’t even know who Vince is anymore. May #1, Clip #7.

One entry is just dialogue.

May 14:

It’s like you’re not even into me anymore.

If I wasn’t into you, I wouldn’t be here. Why are you so angry at me all the time?

All of a sudden it feels like you’re pulling back from me.

I’m at your house every day after school! How is that pulling back?

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