“Never mind,” Ava told her. “Well?”
“No,” I said, but I was sure it wasn’t firm enough of a no.
“Right,” she said out of the corner of her mouth reserved for skepticism. “You let me be the one who thinks about him.”
Her words were like tiny knives sticking into my stomach. I avoided her eyes and hurried Marla along so we could leave for school, but my mind was never free of the thoughts she had deposited there.
“What’s Ava talking about? Who is Buddy? Why does she want you not to think about him?” Marla asked. “I thought we were sisters. Why are you keeping secrets from me?”
“It’s nothing, Marla. Ava is overreacting. He’s just some college boy I met when I was with her at UCLA the other day,” I said, trying to sound as casual as I could. “I made the mistake of telling her I thought he was good-looking, and you know how Ava gets when you mention a boy is good-looking.”
“As good-looking as you thought Mark Daniels was?” Marla asked. I glanced at her. Already, at her age, she could look as mean and angry as Ava.
“He’s different,” I said.
“Oh, you can tell the difference now? That’s a relief. I won’t have my life at risk because of your romantic notions,” she said. She not only looked more like Ava now, she also sounded more like her.
Why was Ava having more of an influence on Marla than I was having? I was the one with whom she spent most of her time. After school, she was usually in my room, not Ava’s. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so flippant with her when she started asking me more questions. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so eager to get her to go to Ava. I wondered if she thought I didn’t like her or want her around me. Now that I thought about it, she had been avoiding me more and more in the house. These suspicions were about to be elevated.
After a few moments of silence between us, Marla suddenly said, “Don’t look for me after school today.”
“What? Why not?”
“Ava is coming for me.”
“When?”
“Before the final period. She has permission to sign me out, you know. Daddy made sure of that.”
“Where are you going?”
“She didn’t say exactly. She just thinks we should spend more time together.”
I was silent. Why was Ava doing this now? Were things going to move this quickly?
“You know,” Marla said, almost as if she had developed the ability to listen in on my thoughts, “she’ll be leaving us sooner than we think.”
I turned to her.
“In fact, we’ll all be leaving Los Angeles,” she continued.
“How do you know this?”
“A little bird told me. How do you think?”
“No, really, Marla. Do you know anything about that?”
“I heard Mrs. Fennel and Daddy talking this morning.”
“Daddy didn’t come down this morning.”
“No,” she said. “You have that wrong. Daddy didn’t come home until this morning.”
“Oh. What did they say?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be the one telling you this. Maybe you should go to Ava,” she said spitefully.
“I never told you to go to Ava with your questions unless I really didn’t know the answers, Marla. Don’t be a little bitch.”