Poison Ink Read Free

“What, did we skip a year and nobody told me? We’re juniors.”
    Sammi shrugged. “Yeah, but the seniors are all gonna be totally focused on getting into college or just getting out of high school, they’re not going to be paying attention. Give them a month, maybe, and they’ll abdicate power. Juniors are the top of the food chain.”
    “Maybe some juniors are,” T.Q. said. “Something tells me I’m not ruling anything. I don’t even think I’m part of the food chain.”
    Letty took a sip from her glass. “Nah, Sammi’s right.” She smiled mischievously. “It’s gonna be a hell of a year.”
     
    Saturday morning, Sammi and her mother packed up the car and drove to Kingston State Park in New Hampshire, only half an hour’s drive from home. The other girls were all headed off with their families for the balance of the weekend, Katsuko all the way down to Cape Cod and the others to various spots along the coast of Maine. Labor Day weekend offered the last taste of summer, and everyone wanted to savor it. But Sammi’s father had to work, so there would be no hotel rooms, no visits to relatives, no bodysurfing for her. Just a few hours at the lake with her mom.
    Sammi didn’t mind. Her mother had mood swings and a strict sense of propriety, and she tended to give even the most casual acquaintances the third degree, making them uneasy. In spite of all that, Linda Holland could be very cool. Sammi’s friends all loved her mother, and Linda made them feel very much at home when they visited.
    Until recently. Things had been tense at home over the past few months. Sammi had a feeling her father could have avoided working today if he had really wanted to, but instead, he’d wanted to avoid his wife. It made Sammi sad, so she tried not to dwell on it. She’d always been much closer to her mother than to her father, which seemed sort of inevitable, since her father wasn’t around much. Her dad could be charming and funny when he wanted to be, but much of the time, it seemed like his mind was somewhere else. Her mother had told her a thousand times that it had nothing to do with her, but Sammi couldn’t help thinking she’d disappointed her father somehow. Otherwise, why didn’t he make more of an effort to be home with them, to act the way Sammi thought a dad was supposed to act?
    Lately he’d been more distant than ever. But at least one good thing had come from that: at a time when a lot of kids she knew were doing their best to avoid their parents entirely, Sammi and her mother had become closer than ever.
    Today was the perfect example. A picnic at the lake, lazing around together, a splash in the water—it had all sounded great when her mom had brought it up. Sammi knew it was just what her mother needed, especially with the escalating tension at home. So they chatted like girlfriends and drank lemonade and ate mozzarella and tomato sandwiches on focaccia bread from the cooler.
    After lunch, Linda sat in her beach chair reading a novel by Michael Connelly. Sammi had brought her guitar along. She would never have lugged the acoustic to the beach, but the lakeshore—a hundred yards of sand and dirt—didn’t have as much blowing grit and wind as the beach. They sat just at the edge of the shadows thrown by the row of tall trees so they could retreat into the shade if they wanted to. The lake was crowded, but not nearly as busy as the beaches would be today. Radios played, but only distantly, and none so loud that they distracted Sammi.
    On the edge of her chair, she sat with her acoustic across her thighs and strummed one of her favorite old Jack Johnson songs, “Banana Pancakes.” When her fingers were limber and her memory had caught up to the rhythm of the song, she sang along quietly.
    “Can’t you see that it’s just raining? Ain’t no need to go outside.”
    The irony made her smile.
    No rain today. The sky stretched into the distance, forever blue, and the sun beat down on them.