Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala

Author:Holly Cupala
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-four

“I don’t think I’ll be here for Thanksgiving,” I announced to my parents after montage practice. After watching Mom direct Essence and the other actors as the ideal family for the last two hours, I just wanted to give thanks alone.

“Oh?” said my dad, not taking his eyes off of his soup.

Mom continued picking through her pad Thai. “And where do you plan to be?”

My options were limited. School cafeteria? The FWCU break room? Under the University Bridge? “Well,” I lied, “Delaney is getting together a bunch of people from school to serve dinner down at the teen homeless shelter, and I thought you wouldn’t mind…”

In reality, Delaney and her dad would be giving thanks à la mode française at Rover’s, the most exclusive French place in town—no doubt with Chloe in tow.

Essence would be having Thanksgiving and all the trimmings with her parents, grandparents, and as many relatives as her mom could cram into their two-bedroom Cape Cod–style house, thankful to be rid of me.

And Kamran…since Big Boss would be closed for the holiday, maybe he would be home, eating Persian turkey pilaf, preparing for his visit to the MIT campus. Or maybe he would be with Delaney, too.

My father raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t seen Delaney around much lately. I thought, after the pregnancy…” He trailed off, probably not wanting to mess with my tender hormonal state. “Glad I was wrong.”

“Marvelous.” Mom smiled, seemingly forgetting she’d been the one to ground me for life. “We can make a pie Thursday morning for you to take.”

Mom wasn’t much of a cook, but she could make a killer pie crust. She insisted on making two pies: one for the shelter, and the other for her and Dad to eat with the tofu-turkey she was going to try her hand at baking, complete with instant mashed potatoes, canned cranberries, and a side of micro-waved peas. I was almost proud of my kitchen-challenged mother.

If I was going to eat this pie under a bridge, it had better be fresh pumpkin, not canned. I scraped the cooked pumpkin out of the skin into a bowl alongside Mom, both of us quiet except for my spoon against the pumpkin’s flesh and the poof of flour as Mom dropped a cup into the mixing bowl. It was the first time in weeks that we’d been in the same room together without rehearsals or traffic drowning out the discomfort.

“How are things at school?” she asked, never taking her eyes off of the bowl as she measured and sifted the flour.

“Fine.” Scrape.

“And work?”

“Good.” Scrape.

She pressed the dough into the pie pan while I stirred up the pumpkin, sugar, spices, and condensed milk. There was more waiting behind her eyes as she watched me stir.

I mustered up one of the yawns always at the ready—extreme fatigue brought about by the real and exhausting task of creating another human being. “I should rest before I go. I’m pretty tired, after working and the play and everything.” It felt good, doling out a dollop of guilt.

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