What Every Girl (except me) Knows by Nora Raleigh Baskin Page B

sounded like the first time she had thought these things. First time she said them out loud. They were meant more for her than for me.
    “It’s harder for me, I think,” Taylor started slowly. “I mean, what happened to your mother…well, it happened so long ago. I still have to live with this all the time.” Taylor sniffed. “Every time I leave my dad’s apartment I feel terrible all over again. Every time.”
    Taylor cried softly, but I didn’t try to say anything else. I lay back down in the bed and looked hard into the endless grayness where the ceiling would be if the light were on.
    I felt so completely wronged, simply because there was nothing I could say to defend myself There were no words to describe my pain, because I wasn’t supposed to have any. What happened to my mother happened so long ago, it wasn’t supposed to matter anymore.
    Hadn’t I spent my whole life proving that very point?

Chapter 15
    Taylor had a tennis lesson first thing Saturday morning. I was grateful that Mrs. Tyler was dropping me off at my house early in order to get Taylor to the Field Club on time. I didn’t want Taylor to see that I was upset. My sadness had turned to anger and grown during the night. I didn’t know at who or for what, but I knew I couldn’t hide it long.
    We woke up, dressed in a hurry, ate on the run, and the next thing I knew I was saying “Thank you for having me” and waving good-bye from my front lawn. Taylor and her mom drove off down my driveway.
    I could hear Ian inside playing electric jazz. He was plugged in. I saw Cleo’s Volkswagen parked in front of the garage. So she had stayed over again.
    Cleo used to leave very early in the morning, before she thought Ian and I were awake. Ian probably was sleeping, but I certainly was not. I used to hear Cleo’s noisy car starting up before the sun. But they didn’t bother hiding that anymore. My dad had never let that happen with anyone else.
    I must have been standing still for a while, staring at nothing, before I felt how cold it was out there. I suddenly had this tremendous urge to tell Cleo what had happened. I wanted to tell her how my heart had clamped up last night when Taylor said her life was worse than mine. I wanted Cleo to explain my anger to me, to tell me I was justified in being so mad. I wanted something from Cleo. And though I wasn’t sure what, I was certain she could give it to me; as certain as I was that I couldn’t talk to my dad about it. It was all part of that stuff we never talk about, so we can pretend it never happened.
    I opened the back door and was met by the warmth from the studio’s space heater, which was humming loudly.
    “Hi, sweetie,” my dad said, still busy at his desk.
    The extension arm of his clip-on lamp stretched as far as it could over his work space. There were no windows, since the studio was a sectioned-off part of the garage, which my dad had built when we first moved here, but an overhead light lit the whole room so he could work.
    “Hi, Dad,” I said. “Where’s Cleo?”
    I started past him toward the inner door to the house.
    “She’s not here. A friend of hers picked her up. They went to look at some fabric warehouse,” he said. Then he looked up from the sketchbook he was drawing in. “Why?” he asked.
    “Nothing,” I said, but I couldn’t believe the disappointment that was creeping up on me. I felt sick.
    “Gabby?” My dad was looking at me now. He put down his piece of charcoal. He always made a sketch before he began work on his big paintings.
    “What?” Anxiousness sounded in my voice, but my dad didn’t notice it.
    “I’m glad you’re here, because I wanted to talk to you, anyway.” He coughed. Not just a little. My dad is a real throat-clearer. But I am used to it. I know he’s around when I hear it.
    “What about?” I said. I wandered away from him, toward the easel.
    Whatever this was, I didn’t want to hear it. My dad never used the words I want to talk to