Then I open the door, with the bath towel wrapped around the front of me because it won’t make it all the way around the back. Now it’s one foot in front of the other, robot-like. I pad across the wood floor to the door. The bubbling water of the hot tub reaches Even’s shoulders.

  “There are steps right over there,” he calls, lifting a steamy arm and pointing. The cold shock of the air semi-distracts me from being nearly naked and about to show my bathing-suit-clad body to a boy. I ascend the steps and then very carefully lower myself in as I remove the towel. It’s painless. The warm and fizzy water envelops me. Actually, it’s divine. I sink in up to my neck.

  Even wears an enormous grin.

  “Great, huh?”

  I don’t answer, just smile with my head tilted back. The stars above blink, and for once, I don’t need to make a wish.

  We lounge in the hot tub, chatting about this and that. I tell him about Brittany and my suspicions about Mason. I talk about Fat Henry and Stacy and how I think he let go of his second job at Dunkin’ Donuts because he’s saved enough for a ring and how I think he might possibly propose on New Year’s Eve. When I feel like I’ve run out of things to say, Even matches my silence for a moment.

  “You’ve told me about some of the other people in your life; now how about you tell me about you?”

  “What’s there to say?”

  He gives me a look. “You’re nearly halfway through junior year. Plans after you graduate next year? What do you do all the hours when we’re not together? I know you sew; tell me about that. Or about what your dreams are or what book you’re reading or I don’t know. I just want to hear about you.”

  I let myself sink completely under the bubbles. I’ve never been sure if you can cry underwater, but I just learned it is possible. Even’s words cut right through the fascia that holds together my battered self-confidence to the little girl who has yearned for someone to show an interest in her. She is the same girl who wanted her mama to hang her paintings on the fridge, no matter that they were scribbles. And the girl who wanted a daddy to dust off her knees when she fell down, and then help her back up. She’s the same girl who, because of the absence of care, concern, and kindness, put on a shield made of donuts, cookies, and cakes to hide from the pain of dismissal, of being told that she is less than valuable and that she’s utterly unlovable.

  I rise to the surface.

  Even guesses at the roller-coaster of emotions I’m riding. He grapples in the water for my hand and grazes my boob. I let out a giggle through a hiccup.

  “Sugar, I see a beautiful, creative, and intelligent girl. Yes, I see what you look like on the outside, and it isn’t what little girls growing up see in magazines or movies or what girls like Hillary and Allie look like either, but if we all looked just alike or worse, acted alike, this world would be a boring place. You’ve got curves. But all of you makes you who you are, and I like that girl. In fact, you’re my favorite person in the world. You have confidence in there, but sometimes I think you just misplace it.”

  He gives my hand a squeeze that lasts and lasts. I hope he’ll never let go.

  An owl hoots in the surrounding darkness, and I think I might have feathers too, for how light I feel right now. “Thanks, Ev,” I say and mean it.

  After this, we talk for hours, lounging in the hot tub until we’re both pink-cheeked and our fingers shrivel into raisins. I discreetly arrange it so he gets out of the hot tub first, and then, trying my best to wrap the towel at least in front of me, I follow him back inside. I rinse off in the shower and then, after putting on my clothes, sit on the end of the bed. Even takes a turn in the bathroom and then comes out.

  “Well, you can’t sleep there,” Even says, pointing to the end of the bed. “I hope this isn’t weird or anything,” he says as he pulls the covers back.

  I climb in on one side. He’s wearing boxers and a T-shirt. I want to freeze-frame this moment to imprint the details forever in my mind. The way his hair hangs when still damp, the little grin he’s worn all night, the way the bone in his right wrist juts out, how he’s already filled out, not overly muscular, but strong. He pads to the light switch and turns it off. I shimmy out of my jeans in the darkness and feel the bed shift when he gets in. His arm wraps around me and our bare legs touch.

  “Good night, Sugar. Sweet dreams.” He kisses my cheek and then nestles close, his face buried in my hair.

  A wave of something like electric, molten lava surges through me from the place where his lips touched, through my chest, and to the spot below my belly button. He settles, and, in a short time, his breathing becomes deep.

  I’ve never been more comfortable in my life, but something eats at me. It isn’t that I missed my usual midnight snack or the utter strangeness of sharing a bed with a boy. No, it’s what he said while we were in the hot tub. Everything he said was right, except he was wrong about one thing. It was about what I look like; in other words, my fat does not make me who I am. This layer of extra flesh hides the real me, even from myself. It conceals emotion and truth. I take this with me as I drift away on a bed of water, out into my memory of the ocean on that blustery day in October, and then I am asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When I wake up, Even sits in a leather chair across the room, gazing out the window. The sun washes him in pale light. He’s so stationary, for a moment, I’m not convinced he’s real. Then he takes a sip of coffee from a white mug, and our night rushes back to me like a pinch on the arm.

  “Morning, sleepyhead.”

  I look at the digital clock on the bedside table. It is 7:22.

  “I wanted to wake you for the sunrise, but you looked so peaceful.”

  “Sorry I missed it.”

  “At my old house on the coast, the sun would stream in through my bedroom window every morning. Bright and promising. I’ve never missed it coming up since.”

  I slide to the edge of the bed and, using the covers to conceal my legs, slide into my jeans.

  After we’re washed and are ready to go, we help ourselves to breakfast in the dining room where we ate dinner. Even fills his plate with eggs and toast. I follow suit, adding a couple slices of melon.

  I hang on to each breath as we sit at the table by the fire, the same one as last night. I don’t want to let this feeling, freedom, companionship, and nourishment, of a sort I never knew existed, slip away. We chat idly, exchanging smiles, and after some more coffee, we’re back outside and breezing down the trail on the snowmobile. Even takes a different route back because we don’t go by the lake but stay on a well-packed trail until we reach a crossroads where I recognize a farm on the edge of town. The magical fantasy of the night shrinks away as slush and familiar buildings take shape in the surroundings. We continue until we reach Even’s apartment.

  We’re both quiet as we anticipate returning to lives we don’t want. Even pushes the snowmobile into the shed beside his motorcycle. I turn to leave, but he takes my wrist and pulls me into a hug. I return with a tight I-never-want-to-let-you-go kind of hug. Then I’m in my car and pulling up in front of my house, which looks sorrier than ever against the somber clouds and dirty roads.

  After I stash my bag, I check on Mama. She tears her eyes from the television and glares at me from the bed. “Where you been? Skunk said you ain’t come home last night. I want to know, what creep were you sleeping with, you slut?” She practically spits at me as she shouts, her face growing purple. Then she erupts into a fit of coughing.

  “Mama. Stop. You’re upsetting yourself. I just went—” but I don’t tell. I’m afraid by describing my wonderful night I’ll somehow sully my memory of it. “I went with Brittany to a party. It was late and I was too tired to drive, so we just stayed. I’m sorry if I worried you.” Why has lying become so easy? God, please forgive me. She looks convinced, but only for a moment.

  “I heard that girl got herself knocked up. I don’t want you hanging around with her no more. Don’t want you to get any ideas and find pudgy little Sugar-babies running around here.”

  Heat builds behind my cheeks. I’m surprised that Brittany is actually pregnant, but more surprised that Mama knows. But what really gets me is hearing how little Mama thinks of me. I’m smarter than that. I go to church. I’m a good Christian girl. I know how the plumbing down there works, and I have plans for my life. Big ones. I’m not sure what they are yet, but I feel myself getting treacherously close to discovering that they are not going to unfold in this falling-down house in this crap town.

  “Nothin’ to say? I thought so. Now go get me something to eat. I’m half-starved.”

  I retreat, but not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I boil over with anger. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve got a mixing bowl filled with cake batter and am spooning it into my mouth. I look down in the bowl. I feel like drowning in it. For all the force of the thoughts I had in Mama’s room, I’m now equally defeated. I had intended to make this cake for Mama later, to make up for not being here earlier for her and for upsetting her so bad, but now here I am, a helpless little girl stuffing away her feelings with sugar, sugar, sugar. The sound of my name in my head blends with Mama calling it from her room.

  “Coming, Mama.” I bring her a plate of microwaved chicken fingers and tater tots and then go back to baking the cake. I whip up some frosting and think about Even and me gliding through the snow. I think about sitting in the hot tub under the stars. After I set the timer, I go to my room and take out my boxes of fabric. I root around until I find a square of clean white polyester. I find a similar shade in linen to go underneath. I sketch an idea: snow, stars, magic, and layers.

  I think of hopes and dreams and then smell cake. I rush down the stairs and get the pan out of the oven just before it begins to turn too brown. I let it cool while I return to my room to begin to cut and pin together the pieces of fabric.

  Downstairs, the front door slams, indicating Skunk has come home. I hurry back to the kitchen so he doesn’t eat the cake before I have a chance to give it to Mama.

  Before I get to the living room, Skunk and a few other boys cackle. When I pass the living room, they all have beers and are crowded around the TV. There’s more laughter, and then Skunk shouts, “Hey, Sugar, bring us some snacks.”

  I consider telling him to get them himself, but after being gone last night, I don’t want to ruffle any more feathers. I grab a bag of cheddar-and-sour-cream-flavored potato chips and a box of Cheez-Its. I bring them into the living room. The image of a woman only in her underwear, licking her lips and walking on her hands and knees, blazes across the screen. I stop midstride, appalled. Not daring to get any closer, I toss the food to Skunk before skittering back to the kitchen.

  He shouts, “Aw, come on, Sugar, it’s just a naked chick.” Then he says, “It must be hard for you to look at her, though, since she’s so hot, and you’re not.”

  The guys laugh.

  Butterflies knock around in my stomach as I become increasingly uncomfortable. When I bring Mama the cake, she has a cigarette up to her mouth, but as if her body is unsure whether to take a drag or cough, she does both.

  “What’s this?” she asks.

  “Well, it’s been so gloomy out I thought I’d make you a cake.”

  “Nice excuse to eat one yourself, I bet. Though with all that weight you lost I think maybe you’re living off rabbit food.”

  “Mama—” I start to say.

  “Bring it here. What kind?”

  “Chocolate with vanilla icing. Your favorite.” I bring it over to her and pull out the paper plate and fork I have on the bottom. As I’m doing so, she stubs her cigarette out in the middle of the frosting.

  “Mama!”

  She glares at me and then, before I realize what’s happening, she takes the back of my head and pushes my face down into the icing. I struggle to get out from beneath her grasp, but she has me by the hair. I twist my head to the side and shout as I wriggle away.

  “Little bitch,” she says.

  I dash to the kitchen, wiping my eyes, and toss the cake, which I held all the while, into the trash. I have to go back through the living room to get upstairs. It’s hard to see, but I do well enough to glimpse that the woman is still on the television screen, another has joined her, both naked, and they writhe together, kissing. At the sound of my steps, the boys turn to me and laugh.

  “What, Sugar, you couldn’t inhale the cake fast enough? You had to stick your whole head in the thing?” They make other mean comments that I don’t hear as I run into the bathroom.

  I grab a musty towel and wipe my face. It’s no use, so I get in the shower and let the water wash away the frosting and humiliation. When I turn the faucet off and dry myself, all I’m left with is anger. As I pull aside the shower curtain, the door to the bathroom opens. I let out a sound of surprise.

  “Hey, there you are. I thought you might be done in here by now.” Caleb, one of Skunk’s friends, stands in the doorway. He has a smear of pimples above his upper lip and greasy hair. He stands with one boot on the toe of the other and leans on the doorjamb with his arms crossed. “I’ve always liked you, Sugar. I don’t think you’re as bad as your brother says. You just ain’t understood. Anyway, I like a girl with a little meat on her bones.”

  I clutch the towel tightly around my body and pull the shower curtain to cover the rest of me. Just my head pokes out. “Uh, OK. Could I have some privacy, please?” I ask.

  “You don’t need no privacy. I just thought I’d come in here and we could, you know, get to know each other better.”

  My mind races. That porn movie probably got him fired up. I’m not interested. At all. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  He takes a step closer.

  I stiffen.

  His eyes are glazed from the beer and probably pot; I could smell it on them when they came in.

  “Aw, come on. I just want to have a little fun,” he says.

  “You need to leave now.” I look around for something to poke him with if he gets any closer. In this house full of junk there’s nothing more than a couple magazines, a toothbrush, and some empty cups and shampoo bottles within reach. “I mean it. I’m not interested.”

  “I hear your friend Brittany is easy. She screws that boyfriend all the time. Come on. You’ll like it.”

  Nervous sweat mingles with my already wet skin as he steps closer.

  “I want you to suck my cock,” he says forcefully, unbuckling his belt.

  “No. Listen, Caleb, you better leave now. I’m not joking. Go on. Leave.”

  “Nah. I don’t think that’s what I want to do,” he answers. “I bet you’ve never been with a guy. It’ll be so good, you’ll want more.”

  I can hardly breathe and my limbs feel like liquid granite.

  “I’m warning you. I said no. Go.”

  He gives me a dirty look, his fingers still on his belt.

  “Skkkkkkunk,” I scream in my loudest imitation of Mama’s bellow.

  “You didn’t need to do that.” He turns to the door.

  Surprisingly, Skunk bounds up the stairs, perhaps out of reflexive habit when he hears Mama’s voice. Only she hasn’t been up here in forever.

  When he reaches the door, Caleb stands in the hall, the bathroom door hanging wide open with me still behind the curtain.

  Skunk realizes his mistake. “What does she want?” he asks Caleb.

  No answer. His lips vanish with a greasy flick of his tongue and he flashes something I wouldn’t call a smile.

  “Tell your stupid friends to stay away from me,” I shout.

  “What, were you messing with my sister? You dog.”

  “No way, man. She’s uglier than a mud duck,” Caleb says. Laughter follows them as they barrel down the stairs.

  I slowly step out of the bathroom. Making sure the coast is clear, I pass into my room. I lock the door and lean against it, sliding to the floor. I don’t care that I’ve never been with a boy. I couldn’t give two shits about Skunk and any of his friends. But I’m scared to leave my room lately, to even be in this house, but I have nowhere to go. I can’t sleep in my car.

  More laughter and hooting filtering up from downstairs hushes my sobs. I pull on some sweatpants and a shirt. I want to leave, but when I think about where I’d go, there’s no answer. I can’t go to Brittany’s or Even’s, and that leaves pretty much no one. I’m alone.

  I pick up my stitches on the dress I’d started earlier and tears fall onto the thin fabric. For a moment, they look like glistening snow.

  The only thing that breaks the monotony of the next couple of days as I try to avoid Mama and Skunk in our ramshackle house is a text from Even that says: Miss you. Birthday plans?

  I reply: You, too. None.

  I don’t hear back from him, but while I fix Mama’s lunch, she and Skunk argue loudly. I hesitate bringing her the fried chicken, biscuits, and pierogies I warmed up, but if she doesn’t get her lunch, it’ll only make things worse. As I carry the plate down the hall, Skunk moves to slam her bedroom door, but it catches on something blocking the frame, and all it makes is a whooshing sound. They must have had a disagreement; he probably asked her for money, something I’ve overheard him do a lot lately. He knocks my shoulder as he passes me. All the food slides off the plate and onto the floor. I follow the five-second rule and scoop everything back up, pulling a strand of hair from a pierogi.

  I bring Mama her food, and she lays into me. Her cough is like a dog’s bark.