The Do-Over, page 7
Lu was staring up at the windows above the barn. Lights flickered inside. Someone must have had the television on.
“I guess we should … knock?” Lu asked.
They never had to knock before. Then again, there had never been strangers (practically) in the loft before. Lu started up the steps that led to the apartment.
“Wait!” Raquel stopped her. “Let’s go the other way.” An oak tree grew behind the barn, with branches that stretched up to the bedroom window. Maybe they could peek inside and get Juliette’s attention without Sylvia noticing.
“You go,” Raquel said when they got to the tree. “One of us has to hold the dinner bag, and you climb faster.”
Lu nodded and tightened the sweatshirt she had tied around her waist. She scrambled up the branches, and when she got to the window, she whispered down to Raquel, “Juliette’s in the bedroom … And her mom’s not with her.”
“Good. Get her to come to the window!”
Lu stretched out her hand to reach a bunch of acorns. She threw them, one at a time, at the window. The first one missed and bounced off the wall, but the next one hit the window with a soft thud.
“She’s coming!” Lu said.
Raquel flinched as the old window screeched open. They needed to keep quiet if they were going to have a chance to talk to Juliette without her mom hearing.
“You scared me!” Juliette said, poking her head out the window. She didn’t seem sick, Raquel thought, judging by how she was almost shouting. “You look sort of like a burglar with that mask on. A burglar with a taste for vintage florals, but still.”
“Shh!” Raquel warned.
Juliette looked down. “You’re here, too? What’s going on?”
“We brought dinner,” Lu said, still hugging the branch.
“And we wanted to ask you about your mom,” Raquel added, trying to get to the point. “What happened when she got back from the house this afternoon? How did she seem to you?”
“Just what I texted Lu earlier,” Juliette said.
Lu? And they were texting? Why hadn’t Lu mentioned it? Raquel wondered.
“She seemed pretty normal,” Juliette continued. “She said Marcos got a haircut … Oh! And she has a new idea for a cool vlog series about quarantine style tips or something.”
“She mentioned the haircut?” Raquel asked. “Was she angry? Jealous?”
Juliette’s eyebrows wrinkled. “That’s not why you wanted me to send her over, is it? Mom doesn’t really get jealous.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Shh! I think she heard something!”
On the other side of the barn, the apartment door opened and Sylvia stepped out onto the landing.
“Hello? Is somebody out there? Marcos, amor, is that you?”
Raquel wanted to gag. Instead, she held a finger to her lips, signaling to Juliette and her sister to stay quiet.
“It’s just me,” she said, walking back to the stairs. “I brought you guys some dinner.”
“Oh, hello, Kel,” Sylvia said. “I thought I heard voices, but I wasn’t sure. I’m still getting used to all the sounds out here.” She took a step backward into the apartment as Raquel climbed the steps and set the dinner bag on the landing.
“Smells delicious,” Sylvia said, lifting the bag. “Thank you. I love your face mask, by the way. I meant to tell you earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before. All of mine are so plain.”
Raquel’s hand went to her face. In the beginning of all this, she didn’t think she’d ever get used to the masks, but now she sometimes forgot she was wearing one.
“Mom made it,” she said. “Out of some vintage fabric she found in the house. She made a bunch, actually. She’s very talented.”
Sylvia smiled. “What a good idea. I’ll have to ask her to upcycle some of my old things, too.”
Raquel started down the stairs. “You can try,” she said. “But Mom is pretty busy with her own projects. And helping Dad, of course.”
“Of course,” Sylvia agreed. “Well, tell him we said thank you for dinner, and have a safe walk back!”
The door shut, and Raquel crept around to the back of the barn.
Lu was still in the tree, talking to Juliette.
“Then the meet got canceled, of course,” Juliette was saying. “And it’s just really frustrating because I was so close to breaking the school’s long-jump record.”
Lu groaned sympathetically. “I know how you feel. I’m supposed to be getting ready for this big figure skating competition, but my rink’s been closed for weeks. Hey, maybe we should train together, while we’re both waiting for everything to get back to normal. When you’re allowed out of the house, I mean.”
Lu was supposed to be plotting with Juliette, not coordinating workout schedules.
“Come on, Lu, we have to go,” Raquel said. “Juliette’s mom is going to call her to dinner any second, and anyway, I have a newspaper story to finish.”
Lu looked down. “Oh, hey, Raquel. I didn’t hear you come back.” She started easing her way back down the tree. “Talk to you later, Jules!”
Jules?
Raquel felt a tug at her chest, like her sister was pulling further away. She tried to ignore it.
But as she led the way back to the apartment, she said, “You know, you probably shouldn’t make friends with her. Considering we’re trying to sabotage her mom’s relationship and everything.”
“She’s not so bad,” Lucinda answered. “You might even like her if you gave her a chance.”
Raquel wasn’t sure whom she was talking about, Sylvia or Juliette. And for once she didn’t want to ask.
Although she wanted to bury her head under her pillow when the alarm Raquel set trilled at six a.m. on Monday morning, Lucinda forced her eyes open. With the farm stand closed until Thursday, it was Dad’s day to sleep in, and since Mom didn’t need to help him, she could sleep in, too. That meant Lucinda would have time to talk to Raquel—without their parents overhearing—before they logged in for school.
Crybaby stood, stretched, and whined a complaint about the early hour. Then he curled back onto her pillow and sank into sleep again.
“Lucky,” Lucinda said, yawning. She got up and did ten jumping jacks to jolt herself awake, then tiptoed down the hall in search of Raquel.
She knew exactly where she’d find her. They might have been more than three hundred miles from their apartment in Los Angeles, but it was still Monday.
“Let me guess, you’re on deadline?”
Raquel lifted her eyes over the top of the laptop and swallowed a mouthful of Corn Chex. “How’d you know?”
But when Lucinda walked around the table and looked over Raquel’s shoulder at the computer screen, she saw a website for a coffee shop in Stockton, a bigger city just south of Lockeford.
“What’s Café Mozart?” Lucinda asked, squinting, her eyes still a little bleary.
“It’s where Mom and Dad had their first date,” she said. “Don’t you remember? We stopped there on the way to Lockeford when we came up to visit for Christmas in second grade.”
Lucinda sat down next to her, bewildered. “How do you remember, like, every tiny thing?” She pulled Raquel’s cereal bowl toward her and took a bite.
“I just pay attention when it matters,” Raquel said, taking the cereal back. “Anyway, I was thinking about what Daisy said, about trying to re-create their first date. But the coffee place doesn’t deliver. And since we can’t exactly drive there, we’re going to have to come up with another plan.”
“Actually, that’s … something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about,” Lucinda said.
Raquel spun toward her, eyebrows raised eagerly. “You have another idea? What is it?”
Lucinda picked at her thumbnail. “Not exactly.” She had fallen asleep thinking about what she would say to her sister. She tried to remember the words now. “It’s just that, everything went so well last night, I was wondering if maybe we should just … let things happen on their own from now on.” She loved the idea of bringing Mom and Dad closer together, but the thought of any more tricks made her stomach hurt. Plus, she meant what she said coming home from the loft. About Jules not being so bad. She liked having her around, actually. She liked having a friend.
Raquel looked at her as if she had just suggested they make Crybaby editor in chief of the Manzanita Mirror.
“Do you want to know why we can’t just let things happen on their own?” she asked. “I’ll show you.” She got up and went to the laundry room, then came back with a purple basket filled with clothes. “I found this sitting right inside the back door when I got up this morning. She even left a note.” Raquel slammed a pink scrap of paper on the table. She watched with her arms folded while Lucinda read.
Thank you for taking care of this for me! XO Sylvia
Lucinda read it three times, and then a fourth, but she still didn’t understand what Raquel was so upset about.
Raquel snatched the note back and huffed. “Do you want to keep finding her laundry around here? Like this is her place? Like she’s taking over? Ordering us around?”
“Not when you put it that way,” Lucinda said, shrinking backward.
“Well, that’s why we have to get her out of here.”
Lucinda twisted her fingers together, not daring to raise her eyes. “Raquel, I’m sorry, but I think you might be overreacting,” she managed to murmur. But there was more. “What if we … tried giving Sylvia the benefit of the doubt? It was just a small favor.”
Both of them stared at the laundry basket for a moment. Then Raquel pulled a leopard-print blouse off the top. “Wait a minute.” She grinned. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe all she wanted was a favor.”
Lucinda hoped that, by the time Ms. King said they could log off at the end of the school day, Raquel would have changed her mind. (Not that she ever changed her mind once she had an idea in her head.) But when Raquel launched the newspaper meeting that afternoon and the screen began to fill with faces, the first thing she said was “I have an announcement. I’ve decided to postpone the story I had been planning to write about the curbside library service Mrs. Forrest is starting. Instead, Lu and I will be writing a step-by-step guide to making your own face mask. But we need your opinion.”
They had taken the computer to the bedroom, where they sat on the floor with Sylvia’s laundry basket between them. Raquel held up two tops, one in each hand. “Should we start with leopard, or with stripes?”
Raquel told the newspaper club what she’d already told Lucinda. How the night before, Sylvia complimented her upcycled face mask and said she wished Andrea would make her some of her own. And how that very morning, a pile of Sylvia’s clothes appeared in the house.
“At first, I thought she wanted us to do her laundry,” Raquel explained. “But that doesn’t make any sense. She’s obviously capable of doing her own chores. As Lu so helpfully pointed out, Sylvia was asking for a favor: She obviously wants us to turn these clothes into face masks.”
“Or she wanted Dad to wash them,” Lucinda said for the tenth time. But she could see Raquel was determined, and that the nodding faces on the computer screen would only encourage her.
Lucinda covered her face with her hands. “Please, Kel, this is such a terrible idea. We should at least double-check to make sure this is what Sylvia actually wanted. Let me text Jules first.”
“What’s so terrible about it?” Peter asked. One of the cockatiels warbled in the background. “Recycling clothes is good for the environment.”
“Yeah,” Mira Young said. “I think it sounds fun. It would give people something to do, anyway.”
“We’re going to get in so much trouble,” Lucinda pleaded. Sylvia would be angry. Mom and Dad would be furious. And Jules? Lucinda imagined how she would feel if someone cut up Mom’s clothes. She shuddered.
“Not necessarily,” Raquel insisted. “Maybe she’ll thank us. Anyway, she should have been clearer about what she was asking for.”
Alice unmuted herself. “I agree with Kel. I think you should go for it. Team Andrea!”
The chat box filled with messages.
Do it!
I vote for face masks!
Plus, you could donate some!
#TeamAndrea
#TeamAndrea
#TeamAndrea
Lucinda squeezed her eyes shut as Raquel held the scissors against the leopard-print blouse. “I can’t watch.”
She heard the blades slice through the fabric, heard the cheers that erupted from the screen. She opened her eyes again just in time to see Raquel lift the blouse up the camera to show the rectangle-shaped hole in the back.
Raquel offered her the scissors. “Try it. It’s so satisfying.”
“Come on, Lucinda, go for it!” Alice urged.
“Yeah, Lucinda!” Mira said. “Do the stripes.”
Lucinda shook her head and turned away.
“Cut! Cut! Cut!” the faces on the screen chanted.
“Fine! Just stop, okay?!”
Lucinda almost never yelled. The computer went silent. She turned to Raquel. “You too. If I do this, can we just stop?”
Raquel nodded. So Lucinda picked up the scissors.
Her sister had been right. Something about the way the fabric gave a soft crunch as the scissors cut through felt like tearing into all the disappointment and confusion and uncertainty of the past two months. When she finished, the whole club cheered. Lucinda could almost forget these were Sylvia’s clothes, and she felt herself reach back into the laundry basket for another shirt.
Just as Dad pushed the door open. He was on a video call, holding the phone in front of his face.
Lucinda dropped the scissors, and Raquel spun the laptop around so it faced the wall.
“You two haven’t seen Sylvia’s laundry, have you? She dropped it off this morning, but I can’t find—” Dad looked down and saw the overturned basket, the pile of fabric scraps, the scissors. “Oh no.”
“What happened? What’s going on?” The sound of Sylvia’s worried voice made Lucinda almost dizzy with embarrassment over what they’d done.
Dad turned the phone around. “Sylvia, I am so sorry.”
Lucinda’s cheeks burned as she saw Sylvia squint into the screen and gasp. “Is that my … ? I was going to wear that to a videoconference with a client this afternoon. It’s my lucky shirt. What happened?”
“I don’t know what could have gotten into them.” Then he narrowed his eyes at Lucinda and Raquel. “But I’m going to find out.”
Hearing the commotion, Mom rushed in. “What’s going on in here?
“I told you!” Lucinda cried.
“Told her what?” Mom demanded.
Lucinda wanted to answer, but Raquel put a hand on top of hers. Leave this to me, she told her wordlessly.
“Nothing’s going on. We’re making some face masks. Just like Sylvia asked us to.”
“Like I asked you to?” Sylvia’s voice rose. “I never asked—”
“Of course you did,” Raquel went on. “When I saw you last night. Don’t you remember? You were saying how much you loved the face masks Mom made us and how you wondered if she’d make you some, too. So when I saw your clothes just dumped here this morning, I thought that’s what you wanted. And since Mom is so busy, me and Lu decided to be helpful and get a head start on the cutting. What’s everyone so upset about? Did you change your mind?”
No one said anything for a few long seconds. Then Dad shook his head. “Raquel, this is ridiculous. You can’t expect us to believe that you really thought Sylvia wanted you to destroy her clothing. Tell me the truth. What’s going on here?”
Lu stared at the carpet, chewing on one of her fingernails. Typical, Raquel thought. She glanced at Mom, who stood behind Dad, arms crossed and looking even angrier than he did. Raquel glanced away. Clearly neither of them was going to be any help. As usual, she’d have to handle this on her own.
She opened her mouth to answer when Sylvia cut in.
“Marcos, no. She’s telling the truth. That’s exactly what happened. This was all a … a misunderstanding.”
Raquel was stunned. She didn’t know if Sylvia actually believed her, or if she was just afraid to hear the truth that Dad had asked for. Either way, Raquel wasn’t going to interrupt.
Mom took the phone from Dad’s hands and held it up to her face. “Sylvia, you don’t have to do this. They need to be held responsible.”
Sylvia forced a laugh that sounded more like the choking cough of someone who had taken a bite of something that was spicier than she expected. “No, it’s my fault. I should have … left a note. It’s actually kind of funny when you think about it, you know? And the girls did me a favor, really. Now I’ll have some new face masks and the perfect excuse to do some online shopping.”
“See?” Raquel said, gazing up at her parents. “It was all a misunderstanding.”
Mom wasn’t convinced, though. A day later, she still hadn’t let it go, even after Sylvia had said they should all forget it ever happened.
“I cannot believe you would do something like that, Raquel,” Mom said on Tuesday afternoon. “Or that you would go along with it, Lucinda. I’m so disappointed in both of you.” They were in the vegetable garden, pulling up weeds and thinning out the carrots. Mom insisted they pay Sylvia back for the ruined clothing and put them to work right after school to start earning the money they owed.
“We said we were sorry,” Raquel replied. “Anyway, none of this would have happened if Sylvia had just done her own laundry, right, Lu?”
Lu inched over to the cauliflowers a few rows over, her earbuds firmly in place. Raquel should’ve known she wouldn’t back her up.
Well, so what if they had to spend the rest of the quarantine pulling weeds? It would be worth it. They had finally flustered Sylvia. Everyone on the newspaper staff agreed. They had heard the whole thing.
Raquel’s phone buzzed. She looked up to make sure Mom wasn’t watching and pulled it from her pocket.
