No Passengers Beyond This Point(21)

I look over at his photo. How could I talk to him? He’s just a photo of himself. Maybe there’s a texting component. Maddy would totally know about that and she’d expect me to know too. “No,” I say.

“Well, go say hello. Just, you know, walk by his screen.”

“Just walk by? How weird is that?”

“Like he hasn’t checked you out already? Wait, don’t turn around. He’s watching now, I can kinda see.”

How can I ever leave Maddy? And Brendan? I can’t believe he likes me, but Maddy swears he does and she would know.

I look around for the mom-like person. Rules would be all over me for this. The second I’m having fun, she comes up with some new rule that puts an end to it.

This woman is cool. She knows when to show up and when to fade away. She comes back in just as I’m looking for her.

“You want to look around now?” she asks. She’s wearing this gold ring with a killer stone in it. It looks totally real. As soon as she sees my eyes on it, she says, “You want to borrow the ring?”

“Are you sure it’s okay?” I ask.

“Of course,” she says. “I don’t care about stuff like that.”

I put it on. It looks totally great, but it makes me uncomfortable.

“It’s okay really, In,” she says. “I know what happened with Maddy . . .”

“Maddy would never in a million years steal anything,” I tell her. “She just borrowed it.”

“I know,” she says.

Still, I give her ring back. I’ve had enough of rings for my whole entire life.

This house is unbelievable—it’s so clean, for one thing. It’s as if Ariana’s neurotic mom ran around here with her vacuum. At our house I’m the maid. Finn is supposed to do the yard and the wash. But c’mon, the yard is the size of a teaspoon and all he has to do is put the clothes in the machine. How hard is that? Whereas I scrub the floors like I’m Cinderella. Thank God none of my friends ever saw that.

Here there isn’t just one living room and one bathroom either. There are gobs of living rooms and dozens of bathrooms; huge ones with makeup and lip gloss in a zillion colors and big cases of eye shadows like they have at the cosmetics counter of department stores.

My mom won’t even let me wear makeup. How ridiculous is that? But thinking of my mom makes me realize she’ll kill me if I forget to check on Finn and Mouse.

The second this thought occurs to me, the woman pushes a button and a gigantic screen pulls down from the ceiling. On it I see Mouse in a room painted to look like the night sky. She is busy hanging planets.

The mom person she’s with looks just like her. The woman appears to be enjoying herself too. Must be a great actress, because she’s got to be sick to death of Mouse by now. Mouse tires everyone out—even the nice people.

Mom thinks Finn helps with Mouse, but I’m the one with all the responsibility. I’m the one who has to share a room with her and give her a bath and let her borrow my underwear.

The second I think of Finn, the screen shimmers to a new scene: Finn and his dad person playing ball. His dad person gives Finn a thumbs-up. Finn smiles. You can totally see him too. He’s not hiding behind his hair.

I follow my cool mom into the kitchen, which has three refrigerators stuffed full of Cokes and root beers. On the stove, a pan of cinnamon buns and a boysenberry pie are cooling. My real mom never has time to bake unless it’s for Finn or Mouse.

I sink my teeth into a warm cinnamon bun and get a rush of buttery, cinnamony flavor. I pour myself a hot chocolate, grab a bag of chips, and head for the library. My real mom likes books, so we went to the library a lot when I was little. But this place is more like a bookstore. Every book is brand-new—the kind of books you have to wait for months to get from the library.

It’s full of light and window seats and snuggly pillows and fish—ohmygod, a wall-size aquarium full of fish—and one white cat stalking.

Stupid cat . . . what’s it doing here? Then I remember I saw a white cat I wanted once. That’s freaky. How could anyone know that? I never even told Maddy.

My cool mom seems to guess what I’m thinking. “I pay attention,” she says as the cat eyes me like I’m a frenemy.

“No kidding,” I say. “I’m not used to it.”

“Your mom’s busy.”

“She always has time for Finn and Mouse.”

My cool mom’s head doesn’t move, but her eyes register that she knows I’m right. “She thinks you’re older.”

“She doesn’t care about what’s important to me.”

My cool mom nods. “Your dad was the people guy. You’re more like him. You scare your mom. She doesn’t know how to protect you where you’re going,” she tells me as she reaches down to stroke the white kitty, who is purring loudly like she needs a cat-sized muffler.