The Princesses of Iowa Read online

  Our class would follow a similar structure every day, Mr. Tremont explained. The first ten minutes would be a warm-up write, and then we would either discuss a published work, write, or do a peer-review workshop for the rest of the period. Mr. Tremont asked for volunteers for the first round of workshopping, and both Shanti and the Freshman raised their hands. “One more?” he asked. “Volunteer . . . or victim?” The rest of us remained silent, looking everywhere but at him. “My high school Spanish teacher always used to say that,” Mr. Tremont said. “Voluntario . . . o víctima?” A few people laughed nervously and he shrugged. “Okay, victim. Let’s see. . . .” He scrolled down the attendance list. “How about Paige Sheridan?”

  A bunch of people turned to stare at me. Shanti gave me a thumbs-up, which I hoped no one else noticed. “Oh,” I said, “um . . .”

  Mr. Tremont looked right at me and smiled. God, he was beautiful. “You can do it.” A pathetic protest got caught in my throat, but he didn’t seem to hear. “Paige . . . Sheridan,” he said, writing. “Okay, Shanti Kale, Ethan James, and Paige Sheridan are up for workshop next Friday, September twenty-fourth. I’ll need your pieces by that Wednesday so that I can make copies for everyone.”

  I snapped to attention. The twenty-fourth was the day of the big homecoming week kickoff bonfire, where the members of homecoming court would be announced. The JV teams would spend all afternoon gathering wood pallets donated by local businesses and Bee Boosters and piling them in the parking lot behind the practice fields. Normally it would be held after the varsity football game, but this year the team had a bye that week, so the bonfire was scheduled to start slightly earlier than usual. It would be weird to just show up and immediately go to the fire without sitting through a game first, and some people worried that the break from tradition meant bad luck for the team. Usually the football coach would light the fire after the game, but I wondered if this would be different, too, without the game. Once the bonfire was lit, everyone would gather around the giant fire — parents, teachers, coaches, a few bored volunteer firefighters, and students — and the varsity football coach would stand on a flatbed truck and announce the names of the football players, and then Dr. Coulter would cough into the microphone and announce the names of the court. Lacey and I had a tradition of squeezing hands as Dr. Coulter named the court, as if we could capture the magic of that moment and hold it between us. Regardless of who we were dating or who we’d come with, we’d always find each other and stand together near the truck, hands solemnly clasped. For years we’d been waiting for our turn to hear our names called, to climb the hay-bale step onto the truck bed and stand above everyone else in the flickering, dancing light of the fire. And now, after all these years, suddenly it was only a week away? I had a brief, panicky feeling that time was moving much too quickly, that at this rate graduation would be here before I knew it, and then I’d be in college and then be married and old before I even had a chance to take a breath. These were supposed to be the best years of my life, and they were slipping away in a haze of awkwardness and silence.

  I snapped back into the present to hear Mr. Tremont talking about workshopping as a process, and how it was supposed to help you grow as a writer, and I realized that the bonfire wasn’t the only thing fast approaching. I was supposed to come up with something for the whole class to read and discuss in a week. Shit. A week? I hadn’t written anything other than essays and papers since middle school. Well, except for the freewriting thing, but that didn’t really count, since I hadn’t known what I was writing about until after it happened, the words just came out of nowhere. And the last part, about us using secrets as weapons — I hadn’t even known I felt that, not really, and yet there it was on the page. But it wasn’t like I was about to hand these scribbled pages in to the class to read — I had to figure something else out, and soon.

  Before the bell rang, Shanti raised her hand. “Mr. Tremont? Before she . . . left, Mrs. Mueller gave us the assignment of going to hear a literary reading during the festival this weekend. Do we still need to do that?”

  Everyone groaned. “Jesus, Shanti,” I heard Jeremy hiss.

  Mr. Tremont watched our reactions with amusement. “Now that you mention it, going to a reading is an excellent idea. So, yes, the assignment stands.”

  “Way to go, Shan,” Jeremy whispered.

  “Whatever,” she said. “You were going to go anyway.”

  “That’s not the point,” he said. “Homework ruins everything.” He pretended to pout, and she rolled her eyes and laughed. I wondered when they’d become such good friends, if she’d just moved back. What else had I missed over the summer?

  “So,” Mr. Tremont said, “I guess I’ll see you guys on Monday with some sort of evidence that you attended said literary event? A program? A poet’s signature, perhaps? A signed copy of a book?” The bell rang, and everyone filed out, muttering death threats at Shanti.

  As I walked past them, I heard a girl say, “For the record, Shanti? You suck.”

  After creative writing, I headed straight for my car, completely preoccupied with the assignment. It was weird — I’d had big papers for classes before, and hard assignments, but nothing had ever stumped me like this before. I’d always been a pretty good student, usually getting all As. My friends teased me sometimes, but the truth was we all got decent grades. And if I occasionally put a little more work into school than they did, it was only because I planned to go to Northwestern, which isn’t exactly a slacker school. Still, it wasn’t like I wanted everyone to see me slaving over the books — it was one thing to get good grades; it was another thing to be totally obvious about it.

  But this assignment was throwing me. Not only would I have to work my butt off to have something ready by next week, I’d also have to share it with the whole class. It would be one thing to embarrass myself in front of the teacher, but in front of the whole class — and right before the homecoming vote?

  Lost in my thoughts, I got in my car and, for the first time since the accident, turned the key without feeling a hint of anxiety. I headed for the one place I knew no one would find me, where I could get a jump start on trying to write something without anyone watching, where I could freak out in peace. Field after field flashed past me, yellow soybeans and tawny corn, shimmering poplars, goldenrod and bittersweet, red vines twisting around farmers’ fences. In the late afternoon light, everything looked golden, and I could almost forget that Lacey was distant, Nikki was wasting away, and Jake suddenly felt the need to be Lacey’s knight in shining armor.

  I parked at the trailhead that led to my favorite spot in the world: a hidden spring, deep in the woods and far away from everything. A circle of boulders marked the place where the springs bubbled up, feeding into a small pool that spilled in a tiny, perfect waterfall to the stream below. Further on, the stream curved around a bend, wound its way under a wooden bridge, and eventually met up with a large lake. As far as I knew, the only other person who knew about the spring was my father, who had introduced me to this spot when I was still a little kid, back when he spent more time at home than on the road. Though the lake, with its boat launches and beaches, was a favorite hangout for fishermen and drunken teenagers alike, I had never seen anyone else here at this spring in the woods, and I considered it to be my secret.

  I grabbed a notebook and pen from my bag. If nothing else, I could always follow Mr. Tremont’s instructions: Keep your pen moving. As I hiked up the steep path toward the spring, I wondered if I could capture it again, that feeling of freedom and release as my pen skipped across the page like stones over water. The words had come from nowhere, and afterward I’d felt lighter, almost giddy.

  The woods were full of dappled sunlight and flashing birdsong. As I walked, I tried not to think about the tangle of my friends and friendships. I did not want to think about Lacey, or Nikki, or Jake. I didn’t want to think about my mother, or my sister, or the fact that I’d barely seen my father since I’d gotten home. Instead, I turned
my mind to creative writing class, to Mr. Tremont’s casual posture against the board as he explained freewriting.

  It took me longer than usual to find the little path to the springs, but eventually I found my way. I took a deep breath for the first time in forever and just listened. This. This was what I’d missed in Paris. Green all around me; no cars, no people. Just birds and water and quiet.

  I climbed up on a sun-warmed boulder and propped the notebook on my knee, remembering Mr. Tremont’s instructions. “Start with I see,” he’d said. I stared at the blank page, feeling nervous and more than a little stupid. I see . . . I paused, looked up and around me. What did I see? Trees. Um . . . the sky. I see the sky. I see a pool and bushes.

  Ugh. I drove my pen through the words. This was stupid. In class, it seemed like someone took over my hand, like the words weren’t coming from me so much as through me. I wanted to write something true again, even if it was just describing the woods around me.

  Mr. Tremont said it should be difficult. If it’s easy, you’re not working hard enough. I looked down at my legs, my black boots. I wasn’t the kind of person who gave up so quickly. At least, I didn’t want to be.

  I see . . .

  I see red sumac, a few leaves beginning to turn yellow. Clear water. A squirrel hopping along a fallen branch, pausing to look at me looking at it. I see . . . my house, the front door painted crimson. I see . . . a girl alone in a strange city, far away from her friends, her boyfriend, the roads and trees she knows. She is lying in her narrow bed, listening to angry voices arguing in the next room. She tries to pretend she’s not here. She tries to pretend there was never any reason for her to be here. That when Lacey said, “Paige, this is not a choice, you have to come to this party,” she’d said, “Actually, it is, and I choose to study for finals and work on my tan,” and then she went home and wrote her boyfriend a long email about how much she loved him, and then the doorbell rang and her best friends showed up saying, “It wasn’t the same without you, so we left the party!” And they ordered a pizza and painted their toenails and watched stupid teen movies where everyone sings their way through high school and it’s easy and happy. And they fell asleep sprawled across the couch, legs tangled with legs and toes in the air to protect their pedicures. And no one got behind the wheel and no one got hurt and the school year ended not with doctors and nurses but with yearbooks and exams, and then the summer stretched out forever, waiting to be filled with trips to the mall and random drives through the countryside and bonfires and stargazing and crazy adventures on the golf course.

  If she just believes hard enough, she can wake up in the life she’s supposed to be living, in her own bed in her own room in Willow Grove, the sheets soft against her legs, a cool breeze and a clean conscience and no canes and no Paris and no yelling and everything the way it was before. If she just believes —

  I was jolted out of my trance by the distinctive flap flap of sneakers on wet leaves. I listened, waiting for the jogger to pass on the trail above. It wasn’t the easiest trail in the county to run, but every now and then I encountered someone attempting it. I could see feet on the trail above, and a flash of gray through the trees. Instead of turning toward the running trail, though, the feet slowed and turned toward me. My trail. My secret. I’d never seen anyone else down here, ever; the trail was far too steep to run. I froze, waiting for the jogger to realize his mistake and turn around.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he half climbed, half stumbled down the trail, grabbing at slender tree trunks and sliding on damp leaves. There was a very specific way to get down elegantly, which involved stepping precisely on certain roots and embedded rocks, but he missed it entirely and slid the last fifteen or so yards, landing somewhat miraculously on his feet.

  The jogger looked up and I gasped. “Hello, Paige Sheridan. You come here often?”

  Dumbstruck, I shook my head.

  It was the Freshman from creative writing class, Ethan. “No? You should,” he said, looking around. “This place is amazing.”

  “No, I mean, I do.” I hugged my notebook to my ribcage. “I just — what are you doing here?”

  “Exploring. I had a rare free moment, so . . .” He shrugged. “I used to do a lot of hiking on the Missouri, around Council Bluffs.”

  He stepped into the clearing, looking past me to the tiny cave and the spring pool. “It really is nice down here.” He seemed different than he had in class. Less weird, maybe. Less staged. But then, I wouldn’t know anything about that, right?

  “What?” he asked, noticing my wry smile.

  “Nothing.”

  He looked at his legs. “Am I covered in mud? Am I trailing toilet paper or something? Am I breaking out in mint chocolate chips?”

  I laughed. “What?”

  Ethan shrugged. “Hey, there are countless ways I could be humiliating myself in front of you right now. I need to be ready for any possibility.”

  “You’re not breaking out in mint chocolate chips,” I said seriously. “But I think I see a hint of praline pecan on your forehead.”

  He slapped his hand across his face. “Ugh, it never fails. Run into a girl, break out in pralines.”

  I smiled and looked away. For a moment it was silent between us, and I could hear the echoes of geese honking on the distant lake.

  “So,” he said. “I guess this answers one of my questions.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where.”

  I shifted my weight, looking at him. “Where?”

  “You know, from class? ‘Where does Paige Sheridan go when she needs to get away.’”

  “Oh. Right.”

  He looked at me. “So you come here to get away, and the new kid shows up and starts peppering you with questions. You know, you should really keep this place a secret.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  Ethan grinned and held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I promise I’ll never come down here again. And I won’t tell anyone about this place. I won’t even think about it, in case they can read minds.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s okay. I mean, I don’t own it. You can do what you want. If . . . if you need to get away. It’s good for that.”

  “Well,” Ethan said slowly. “Thanks.” He took a step toward me, gesturing to my boulder. “May I?”

  “Oh.” I slid off the rock. “Sure, yeah. I was just about to leave.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “There’s room for both of us.” He stopped abruptly, eyeing my notebook. “Were you writing? Crap, did I interrupt you?”

  He thought I was writing. No one else in the entire school would run into Paige Sheridan and ask her if she’d been writing. I should have rolled my eyes, but instead, I found myself grinning. “No, it’s totally fine,” I said.

  Ethan grinned back. “Are you sure?”

  I attempted to get ahold of myself. “Yes. Sure. You — you just surprised me, that’s all. But yeah, I was leaving, and so, um, I will just do that now.” He watched me for a second and I nodded encouragingly. “Really, make yourself at home.”

  He shrugged and hopped up on the boulder, pulling out a small notebook from his sweatshirt pocket and waving it at me. “You sure you don’t want to stay? I’m a very friendly writing companion.”

  Why was he being so nice to me? After what I’d said in class — I felt my face getting hot at the thought. I was such an asshole. Unless he hadn’t heard me? Unless he thought I was somehow different from my friends? Or maybe he was just a freshman in the presence of a senior, so he wasn’t going to pick a fight.

  “Thanks, but I have to get going. Good luck with your writing.” I turned and made my way up the steep hill to the main trail, stepping carefully from root to stone to root.

  Behind me, Ethan said, almost to himself, “Is that how you do it?” Then, as I reached the leaf-strewn path at the top, he called, “Your secret’s safe with me!”

  I crouched down to see him. “Not if you keep yelling it through the woo
ds, it isn’t!” I heard him chuckle faintly, and as I headed up the path, I realized I was smiling.

  That night, Nikki came over to help me prep appetizers for my mother. “I should have called Chris,” she said, stabbing a toothpick through a bacon-wrapped date. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

  “Ha.” My sister walked into the kitchen, heading for the fridge. “The way to a man’s heart is through his rib cage.” She reached out and grabbed an imaginary heart in her claw, bringing it up to her face. “Yum.”

  Nikki looked slightly horrified. “Ignore her,” I said, turning my back to my sister. “She’s going through her dark phase.”

  Miranda grabbed a soda and walked past us. “Ignore her,” she told Nikki, nodding at me. “She’s going through her artificial phase.”

  “Go away, Miranda,” I said.

  “Gladly.” She turned and stalked grandly out of the kitchen, calling back over her shoulder, “It’s Mirror!”

  Nikki sighed. “I wish I had a sister.”

  “Um, okay.”

  She was quiet for a moment, staring out the big kitchen window into the dark yard. Nikki was an only child. Her parents were older than everyone else’s, and she once told me that she’d been a mistake. In middle school, she’d been obsessed with babysitting, and she kept trying to get Lacey and me to start a babysitting club with her. I imagined her at dinner with her parents, silent but for the noise of a knife scraping across a plate. Poor Nikki. She’d probably spent the summer months alone, trapped in her cavernous house, beating herself up for one bad night. One mistake. No wonder she seemed quieter this year.

  When she turned back from the window, her blue eyes looked gray. My heart broke for her, just thinking about all the sleepless nights she’d had, blaming herself for everything that had gone wrong between all of us.

  “Do you think,” she finally said, her voice quiet and thoughtful, “if I put orange frosting on a cookie, it counts for my diet?”