Far From Normal Read online

  “Plus, it’s not like she’s going to be completely alone,” Katie volunteers, shooting me a look out of the corner of her eye. “I can be her point of contact if she needs anything.”

  Friend status confirmed.

  “Great.” Emma pulls a bank envelope out of her bag, along with Watford’s leash and her bike seat.

  “Oh.” I take the metal tube out of her hand. “You rode your bike today?”

  “Of course. Watty needs his exercise.” She throws her arm around my neck for an awkward sit-stand hug. “You can eat at the restaurants in the building. And there’s plenty of cash to cover anything else you might need. Consider it payment for taking care of my baby.”

  She squats down and kisses him square on the mouth, which is disgusting, considering he just finished licking his balls. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you? Be so sweet for my Maddie. None of this naughty business.”

  Watford is the chillest dog. It’s going to be the easiest weekend ever. I’ve got money to spend. No supervision and no responsibilities.

  How could anything go wrong?

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  CHICAGO IN JUNE IS A GIFT TO ANYONE WILLING TO BRAVE THE frigid winters. The sun doesn’t shine on the narrow road on the north side of the building, but it’s the perfect temperature in the shade as I unlock Aunt Em’s bike. The humidity is low. My hair is frizz-free for once, lying smooth down my back.

  People are whizzing along in the bike lane, socks tucked into pants, moving like they know exactly what they’re doing. Small problem: I know next to nothing about bikes. I grew out of mine when I was twelve and my legs got too long to ride without bumping into the handlebars, and I haven’t been on one since. I’m a little shaky as I walk down the ramp to the bike path that traces Lake Michigan. I have to stop at the bottom of the slope to wipe my sweaty palms on my borrowed dress.

  Pausing for a moment to breathe, I send Katie a quick text to thank her for backing me up with Emma. I am going to be fine. My family crashes at Emma’s apartment for a few weeks every summer. Chicago is practically my second home.

  Music blares from the beachfront. There’s some sort of event happening with little soccer fields sectioned off in yellow tape. There’s even a temporary grandstand with sponsorship posters hung along its supports. Groups of people clump together on the wide concrete stairs that lead down to the beach, enjoying the games and the weather.

  On another day, I’d sit on the steps and let the sun shine on me, but I should probably get Watty home.

  “You never forget how to ride a bike, right?” I say to the dog.

  He tilts his big square head, one ear cocked, like he knows I’m talking to him, but isn’t positive what I’m saying. He’s adorable despite the underbite and occasional strings of drool.

  My dress is flowy enough to fall between my legs, so at least that won’t be a problem. My wedges won’t be either. I used to ride in flip-flops as a kid. And yet, my lungs are tight as I slide Watford’s leash up to my elbow. He knows how to do this, even if I don’t.

  I swing my leg over the bike and wobble a little before I get both feet on the pedals. I’ve got this. So what if I haven’t ridden a bike in years?

  As I pedal along slowly, Watford picks up his pace, trotting beside me with his mouth open. For a dog with floppy jowls, he looks like he’s smiling. It’s a beautiful day. I’m in one of the most amazing cities in the world. Things are good. I inhale a breath of beachy air—sunblock, sunshine, and sand—and exhale the last of my negative feelings. Perfect.

  I’ve totally got this.

  As we move past the grandstand, the soccer fields come into view. Two teams of guys pass a bright orange ball back and forth, and then it bounces a handful of yards from us.

  Watford’s head whips toward the ball, and then he’s off, yanking the bike to the right, and I know I’m in trouble.

  “No, Watford! No!” I pull my elbow back, but it’s too late. The ledge of the cement steps appear before me. I try to brake, but the bike skids over the first stair. My feet drop off the pedals, flailing for the ground. One pedal catches me in the shin; the front tire hits the next stair. My stomach lurches under my ribs.

  And then I’m airborne.

  A BRIGHT LIGHT HANGS ABOVE ME, BLOTTED OUT BY FOUR SHADOWS. Glorious shadows. The kind of arms and shoulders and abs that you only see in magazines or dream about. So, I’m pretty sure I’m dead and this is heaven.

  Huh. The Greeks were right. Yay for the pantheon.

  “Are you okay?” One of the gods drops down into the sand beside me.

  Weird that they have sand in heaven. I hate sand.

  “Did you hit your head?”

  Did I hit my head? I’m not sure.

  Wait. I’m in pain. My knee hurts. My back hurts. It all comes rushing back to me. Watford. The bike. The stairs.

  I sit up, and the hem of my dress flops down to cover my Wednesday panties. I bought them because they were silky and didn’t show lines through my clothes, but they have the days of the week printed on them. And they are showing.

  This is definitely not heaven. I’m in hell.

  “Oh yeah.” I jump to my feet, smoothing my dress over my butt. “I’m totally fine. That was pretty funny, huh?”

  The guy closest to me has on reflective sunglasses, but they don’t disguise the worry on the rest of his face. “That was one of the worst falls I’ve ever seen.” He reaches out to touch my arm, like he wants to support me but stops. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah! Of course.” I smile and wave off his worry, even though tears prickle my eyes. “I’ve just got to get the bike and …” I spin around, realizing Watford’s leash is no longer on my arm.

  One of the guys is taller than the rest. Like gargantuan tall. Like a foot taller than me and that’s saying something. He points to my leg. “You’re bleeding.”

  I look down at a gash that splits my kneecap. “It’s just a scratch.” A big scratch. Big enough that the blood is already dripping down my leg and under the strap of my shoe. I’ll worry about it later when there aren’t people staring at me, probably filming this whole thing. “My dog. Did any of you guys see where he went?”

  “Yeah,” Mirrored Sunglasses says. “He’s in the water. With our ball.”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” I limp toward the lake, yelling for Watford.

  Two of the guys peel off, leaving me with Sunglasses and Super Tall. They round up the dog pretty quickly. Watford trots back toward me with the remnant of what was once a soccer ball. He drops it at my feet like an offering.

  Is it possible to die from embarrassment? And if so, couldn’t I have just died from the fall? My face heats to a million degrees. Sweat beads between my shoulder blades and stings the gash on my knee.

  “I’m so sorry. I forgot how much he loves soccer balls. My uncle used to play in the UK, and Watford just destroys every ball he sees, and he must have gone crazy when he saw this one and—” And I’m rambling. I can’t seem to make it stop. “I can buy you a new one.” I reach for my purse, but it’s in the sand a few feet behind the bike, and I realize that the other soccer team—of the game I just crashed into—is waiting impatiently.

  “I’ll just take him and …” I thumb toward the walkway. A guy with a shaved head hands me Watford’s leash.

  Sunglasses jogs along beside me and picks up the bike while I grab my bag. I pull out a twenty from the cash envelope Aunt Emma left for me to use for food while she’s out of town, but he shakes his head.

  “Please don’t concern yourself.”

  I realize that Sunglasses has an accent to go along with his Greek god good looks. He is probably Greek for real. Or British. I don’t know. Maybe I did hit my head. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” He carries the bike up the stairs for me and puts it on the path. “Can you make it home all right? Should I call someone for you?” He frowns at the dog, forehead bunching in concern.

  “We’ll be fine. Wat
ford is such a good boy.” And he usually is, right until he starts licking the blood off my leg. “Knock it off.” I push his nose away.

  Sunglasses lets out a little chuckle he’s probably been trying to hold back this whole time because a girl in a dress flipped over a bike’s handlebars and into his soccer game. If it wasn’t me, I’d probably laugh too.

  “Gabe!” Super Tall yells, pointing to their opponents. The game is starting again, and they’re playing without him.

  He hesitates, like he’s not sure if he should leave me alone.

  “You should go.” I try to take the bike off his hands. “Thanks for your help.”

  “I hate to leave if you’re injured.” He doesn’t relinquish his grip on the handlebars.

  “Nope. I’m good.” I’m also lying.

  Sunglasses, aka Gabe, gives me a grin. “You do know how to ride a bike, right?”

  The heat in my face burns all the way up to my ears. “What? Yes! Of course.” I make myself laugh like what he’s saying is so silly. It comes out too high-pitched, and I clear my throat. “Everyone knows how to ride a bike.”

  His dark eyebrows pop up above his glasses. “If you say so. Be safe.”

  Then he’s jogging back to his game, checking over his shoulder once to wave goodbye.

  Holy crap. Now I actually have to ride the bike home. I hop on, cursing as it pulls at the wound in my knee, but I’m not going to walk away. I can ride until I reach the trees, and then I’ll get off again where he or any other members of the pantheon can’t see me.

  “Watford. Heel.”

  I swear the dog’s expression droops, which is pretty impressive considering his face is always droopy.

  “No treats for you.”

  I pedal off again, trying to ignore the blood pooling between my toes.

  Honestly, once I get going, it’s not so bad. Watford keeps a decent pace, and as long as I don’t have to do any tight turns, I’m fine. Nervous and trembling and mortified, but fine.

  When I pull up in front of Aunt Emma’s high-rise luxury residence hotel, the Belden-Stratford, Doorman Kevin bounds down the stairs. “Miss Maddie? Are you all right?” He takes the bike from me, balancing it against his hip as he bends over to get a closer look at my leg. “Let’s get you inside, and we can call your mom.”

  So she can ruin everything over a skinned knee? Thanks, but no thanks.

  “I’m fine, Kevin. Really.”

  But he bustles me to the front desk and calls one of the bellhops to wheel the bike up to Emma’s apartment. He makes me sit in one of the fancy red-and-gold chairs in front of a low marble table and kick my leg up on top. One of the ladies at the front desk—her tag says JAN—brings me a little first aid kit with plenty of bandages and big gauze pads. Watford rolls up against her legs, long tongue lolling out. She pats his head absently like she’s used to his affections.

  Everyone is so kind, but it’s salt on this new embarrassment. I should be used to it at this point. I came by the nickname CalaMaddie McPherson honestly. Just like Calamity Jane, accidents like this seek me out. My eyes sting almost as much as my knee. Not only did everyone on Lake Michigan and a group of super-hot guys see my epic crash, but now, everyone in the lobby of this ridiculously expensive hotel knows that something happened too.

  I manage to extract myself from Jan and Kevin’s care, promising to call my mom as soon as I’m upstairs, and limp to the elevators with Watford trailing behind me. At least I wore him out. He walks straight to his water dish below the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lincoln Park and starts to slurp. I drop onto one of the tufted barstools at the island that divides the kitchen from the living room to take a look at my gash. I’ve had worse.

  Like the scar on my chin from slipping in a puddle of soda at the mall two years ago. Eight stitches that time. I’ve got a permanent bump on my left forearm from a battle I lost with the stairs at my grandma’s house. My mom always says that if a disaster is going to happen, it’s going to happen to me. To make me feel better, my older brother, Max, emailed me a study proving that one in twenty-nine people is naturally more accident-prone. It suggested that a lot of those people are risk-takers: never me. Some are multitaskers, trying to do too many things at once: probably me. Others just have bad luck: totally me.

  I reach for my phone because this is the kind of thing that I tell Max. He’s great about laughing with me or at least helping me see twenty ways the accident could have been worse—his brain runs on probabilities and statistics—but the little flap covering the pocket of my purse is open. My stomach lurches like I’ve just gone over the handlebars again, and I know without digging through my bag that my phone is gone.

  I’m going to have to go back and look for it.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  IF I HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE SCENE OF THE INCIDENT TO SCOUR the sand, I’m not doing it in this ridiculous dress. I limp-run to my room, throw on a pair of old cutoffs and a plain black tank.

  Watford quirks his head as I put on my flip-flops. “I’ll be back soon, you mongrel—”

  Wait. What is that noise? I spin around in a circle, tracing the sound. It’s definitely a brrring. I jog into Aunt Emma’s room and there on the bedside table is an old phone. The kind they have in hotels, which makes sense since the Belden-Stratford is technically a hotel.

  I hesitate before I pick up the beige, corded thing. “Hello?”

  “Maddie!”

  “Mom?”

  She lets out a big, relieved sigh. “This guy called me from the beach, and he said he had your phone, but he sort of had an accent and I thought he said he had you. And I asked him, ‘Is this some sort of sick joke?’ And he said—”

  This. This is why I can’t go home. “Mom! Relax. Slow down a little bit. Someone has my phone?”

  “Yes! And that proves I was right. Remember when I made you add me as your emergency contact on your lock screen? Well, it worked. And someone found your phone. He said something about needing to play another soccer game on North Avenue Beach, so he’ll be there for a while. I tried to call Emma, but her phone went straight to voice mail. So—”

  “Yeah. Emma’s in this crazy meeting, and she asked me to take Watford home.” Not a lie. None of that was a lie. Emma is headed to a meeting and as far as I know it’s crazy. And if I tell my mom that meeting is in another country, she’s going to drive straight to Chicago from our hometown of Normal, Illinois. And the last thing I need right now is for her to remind me how completely incapable I am.

  “She’ll be home later.” Much later.

  “Okay, well. You should wait for her and then—”

  “No!” I choke down the panic rising in my chest and pace a few steps away from the nightstand, only to be pulled back by the curly cord. How did people ever use these things? “Mom, it’s fine. I don’t want to bother her, and the sun is still up, and I’ve got Watford.”

  He pokes his head through the bedroom door, ears perked as if I’ve called for him. Devil Dog. None of this would have happened if not for him.

  “But if there are a lot of people, then someone could snatch you.”

  “Motherrrr. I am seventeen years old.” She forgets this fact constantly.

  She sighs again, and this time, I hear resignation in her voice. “Well.” Mom says nothing for a long while, and I can imagine her in our kitchen. Her laptop is probably open on the counter, her newest book on the screen. Although at this stage it’s not actually a book; it’s just an idea. She’s had a lot of ideas over the past ten years but hasn’t sold any of them to publishers.

  “Well,” she says again because that’s what she says when she’s trying to figure her way into the winning side of a conversation, which is all the time.

  “I’ll be fine.” I drop to the side of Aunt Emma’s bed, and Watford plunges his face directly into my crotch. This. Darn. Dog.

  “Just get there and get back.”

  I can’t help but smile in relief. There’s still worry brimm
ing her voice, but it isn’t spilling over into an emergency situation. “I’ll call you as soon as I have my phone.”

  She gives me his name—Gabe, of course—and his number in case I can’t find him and then says, “I really miss you, Mads.”

  The sink turns on in the background. She’s probably washing dishes while we talk. Mom may freak out once in a while, but she never wastes time. There’s probably something in the crockpot and a load of laundry on the couch that I’m not there to fold. I ignore the self-condemnation that rises with that thought. I’m pretty sure that’s what she wants me to feel, anyway.

  “I miss watching Star Trek reruns with the only other Trekkie in the house. And I wish you were here to take your little brother to math camp,” she continues, driving the spike of guilt in deeper. I can imagine the pile of worksheets she makes my younger brother do even though school is officially out. “Heaven knows Max doesn’t have time to help me.”

  Gotta give Mom credit for staying on brand. This is so completely expected, that even though today sucked I’m still glad I’m in Chicago, breaking out of the box she keeps me in. Normal was a fine place to grow up for the most part, but it’s just small enough and my last name is just uncommon enough to make me the “other” McPherson.

  “Are you Max McPherson’s little sister?” every teacher, administrator, and coach would ask, failing to hide the awe in their voice. I can’t count the number of times I considered lying, but there was no point. Max and I have the same shade of brown hair, the same gray eyes, the same gap between our front teeth until orthodontia gave us matching smiles. We are still confused for twins—he’s fourteen months older—but our similarities are only physical.

  Max is a certifiable genius. Pretty much everyone in Normal knows his IQ and his GPA, 146 and 4.8, respectively. He’s also a great athlete, good member of the community, and a literal Boy Scout. And as such, I’ve always been a huge disappointment to anyone who knew him first. Max is “gifted.” I’m normal.

  I’d probably hate him if he wasn’t also one of the nicest humans in existence.