Magnolia Wednesdays by Wendy Wax Page B

lifeline to the world, or at least that part of it that mattered to her. Every few seconds there was the sound of an incoming message. This was followed by more thumb action.
    “Who are you ‘talking’ to?” Melanie asked.
    “Nobody you know.”
    “I don’t have to know them,” Melanie replied carefully, although she knew she should. Should know everyone Shelby hung out with. Meet their parents. Be on top of things. “I just need a name. Some clue as to who you’re friendly with.”
    “Jason and Ally.” Shelby’s fingers never slowed nor did she offer another iota of information. She grimaced in distaste when Melanie asked her to take a few of the grocery bags into the house. Inside, Melanie pried Trip away from the PS3 and sent him out for the rest of the bags. He didn’t grimace. Or speak.
    Shelby was texting again before Melanie had even unwrapped the pizza. After she slid it into the oven, she made Shelby stop long enough to mix a salad and forced Trip to turn off the TV and set the table, but even she wasn’t looking forward to a meal during which she would try to pry information about their days from them and they would give her the smallest possible drips and drabs. She had to be back at the studio in thirty minutes.
    Melanie helped herself to a slice of pizza. “Shelby, turn your phone off now. You know we don’t bring them to the table.”
    Her daughter pushed the phone away from her and sent an ugly glare at her mother. Melanie didn’t comment; the ugly looks had become pretty much par for the course. But she did pocket the phone, then smiled and attempted, once again, to start a conversation.
    “So who do you think will be going to the World Series?” she asked her son. When J.J. had been alive, this question might have prompted a dinner-long discussion with good-natured taunting and real vested interest. Trip, who had once lived and breathed sports, baseball in particular, just shrugged.
    They consumed the meal and cleared the table in silence, technically together but locked in their own little worlds. Melanie would have liked to blame their lack of communication on the fact that two out of three of them were teenagers and, therefore, horribly hormonally imbalanced while she was clearly stressed to the max. But she was afraid the real reason was J.J.’s absence; the vast emptiness he’d left between them seemed impossible to fill.
    “I’ve got two classes tonight,” she said as she prepared to leave. Without comment she returned Shelby’s phone and pocketed the key to Shelby’s car, which had been taken from Shelby three weeks ago when her truancy had been discovered. “I should be back by ten thirty.”
    She fixed her daughter with a stare. “Watch out for your brother. And please help him with his Spanish if he needs it.”
    Shelby didn’t answer. Trip was seated at the kitchen counter and was emptying his backpack all around him in preparation for doing homework. Melanie dropped a kiss on the top of his head—she only got to be taller than him when he was seated—and strode out of the house, rushing yet again.
    For the next two hours she lost herself in the music and her students’ excitement as she taught the first class the intricate steps of the merengue and then the second class the bouncy shuffle of the Texas two-step.
    She was beyond tired when she finally drove the van into the driveway; she could hardly wait to peel off the clothes she’d put on at six thirty that morning and crawl into bed. All thought of relaxing fled when the van’s headlights illuminated a flash of white moving near the backyard fence and Melanie recognized her daughter’s back retreating around the side of the house.
    If she’d come home thirty seconds later, she wouldn’t have known that Shelby had gone out. In the garage, Melanie turned off the car and sat longing for bed. But she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen Shelby tiptoeing around the house. Or ignore the fact that Shelby had, once