“I would think very hard before answering if I were you,” she interrupted me, her voice still even and calm. “Because if you lie to me, your punishment will only be worse.”

Busted. There was nothing I could do.

“I saw you, Halley, today at about ten forty-five, which I believe is when you’re supposed to be in gym class. You were in a car, pulling out of the First Street Mall.”

“Mom,” I said. “I can—”

“No.” She held up her hand, stopping me. “You’re going to let me finish. I called your school and was told, to my surprise, that I had just spoken with someone to have you sent home due to a family emergency.”

I swallowed, hard.

“I cannot believe that you would lie like this to me.” I looked at the floor; it was my only option. “Not to mention,” she went on, “cutting class and running around town with some boy I don’t know, and Scarlett, who of all people should know better. I called Marion at work and she was equally furious.”

“You told Marion that Scarlett was with us?” I said. So she knew; she knew before Scarlett would even have a chance to explain.

“Yes, I did,” she snapped. “We agreed if this was a new trend for you two, it needed to be nipped in the bud, right now. I will not have this, Halley. You’ve been pushing it with Ginny and camp all summer, but today was the last straw. I’m not going to let you openly defy me when it suits you. Now go upstairs and stay there until I tell you to come down.”

“But ...”

“Go. Now.” She was shaking, she was so mad. There’d been that strange uneasiness all summer, the rippling of irritation—but this was the real deal. And she didn’t even know half of it yet.

I went up to my room and straight to the window, grabbing my phone. I dialed Scarlett’s number and just as it started ringing I saw Marion’s car coming down the street. Scarlett answered right as she turned into the driveway.

“Watch out,” I said quickly, whispering, “we’re busted. And Marion knows you didn’t do it.”

“What?” she said. “No, she doesn’t. She thinks I took a cab home.”

“No,” I said, and I could hear my mother coming up the stairs, down the hall, “my mother called her. She knows.”

“She what?” Scarlett said, and I could see her garage door opening.

“Halley, get off that phone!” my mother said from outside my door, rattling the handle because thank God it was locked. “I mean now!”

“Gotta go,” I said, hanging up quickly, and from my window I could see Scarlett in her kitchen, holding her phone and staring up at me as Marion burst in, her finger already pointing. My mother was outside my own door, her voice meaning business, but I saw only Scarlett, trying to explain herself in the bright light of her kitchen before Marion reached and yanked at the shade, making it fall crooked, sideways, and shutting me out.

Chapter Six

I had to sit and wait for my punishment. I could hear my parents downstairs conferring, my father’s voice low and calm, my mother’s occasionally bouncing off the walls, peaking and plummeting. After an hour she came upstairs, stood in front of me with her hands on her hips, and laid down the law.

“Your father and I have discussed it,” she began, “and we’ve decided you should be grounded for a month for what happened today. You are also on phone restriction indefinitely. This does not count your birthday tomorrow; the party will go on as planned. But as far as anything else goes, you may go to school and to work but not anywhere else.”

I was watching her face, how it transformed when she was angry. The short haircut that always framed her face looked more severe, all the angles of her cheekbones hollowing out. She looked like a different person.

“Halley.”

“What?”

“Who was the boy who was with you today? The one who was driving?”

Macon flashed into my head, smiling. “Why?”

“Who is he? Was he the boy who cut the lawn that day?”

“No,” I said. My father had either forgotten Macon’s name or was choosing, wisely, to stay out of this. “I mean, it’s not him, it was my—”

“He took you off campus and I need to know who he was. Anything could have happened to you, and I’m sure his parents would like to know about this as well.”

The thought alone was mortifying. “Oh, Mom, no. I mean, he’s nobody. I hardly know him.”

“You obviously know him well enough to leave school with him. Now what’s his name?”

“Mom,” I said. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“Is he from Lakeview? I must know him, Halley.”

“No,” I said, and thought You don’t know everyone I know. Not everyone is from Lakeview. “You don’t.”

She took a step closer, her eyes still on me. “I’m losing patience here, Halley. What’s the boy’s name?”

And I hated her at that moment, hated her for assuming she knew everyone I did, that I was incapable of life beyond or without her. So I stared back, just as hard. Neither of us said anything.

Then the phone rang, suddenly, jarring me where I sat. I started to reach for it, remembered about phone restriction, and sat back. I knew it was Macon. It rang on and on as she stood there watching me, until my father answered it.

“Julie!” he yelled from downstairs. “It’s Marion.”