Free How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr Page A

don’t think about Mandy. When things finally slow down a bit and I do remember her, the word that won’t leave me is sister . Mandy’s baby will be my sister. The discovery that the baby is a she and not a he has softened me up a tiny bit. I know that logically this shouldn’t change anything in terms of how I feel about the situation, and I definitely think Mandy’s full of shit about not knowing her real due date, but what girl doesn’t want a little sister? It’s a chance to be worshipped and adored, to buy miniature pink hoodies and spiffy toddler tights, to instruct a clean-slate brain on How to Be Awesome and Not Lame. By the time I’m my mom’s age, a seventeen-year gap won’t be a big deal, and it could be, I don’t know, good . To have someone built into your life like that, permanently, even if you didn’t always get along. Family.
    And if something happens to my mom, the way it did to my dad, I won’t be all alone.
    I pull myself back from this thought and work on rekindling my annoyance at Mandy, which is a much easier and more pleasant mental space to dwell in. If my sister turns out to be exactly like Mandy, forget it. Based on what I learned in psychology class, it could go either way. Nature, nurture, a mash-up of both… it’s all a mystery no one truly understands.
    First we have to get through the next seven weeks.
    Half an hour before closing, the lines finally dwindle, and Annalee sends everyone but the closers home. That leaves her and me and Ron. I’m straightening up my register area and restocking bags when I feel eyes on me. Annalee asks, “Can I help you?” in a super-friendly, flirty way, and I know it’s Dylan. I just know. There’s no one else whose presence I can feel that way, down into my bones. I purposely keep my head down a few extra seconds so that he can soak up this view of me in my element and have time to forgive me for being a bitch yesterday.
    “Um. I’m here to see Jill?”
    My head jerks up. It’s not Dylan. It’s R.J. Or Ravi. With a yellowish bruise on his jaw.
    “Why were you staring at me like that?” I blurt.
    “Like what?”
    Now that we’re in normal light, I can see the resemblance between the current R.J. and Ravi circa my sophomore year. His face has thinned out, the glasses are gone, and the hair is under control. But it’s him.
    “Never mind. This is R.J. Desai,” I say to Annalee. “Loss prevention associate.” To him, “This is my manager, Annalee Calonita. But you probably know that, since you’ve been spying on the store.”
    They shake hands. “Are you new?” Annalee asks. “What happened to that Doug Richards guy?”
    “Doug Richmond. He’s… no longer with us.”
    “He died ?”
    “No no no. He’s pursuing other opportunities.”
    She laughs. “You don’t have to use corporate-speak here. He was canned, I get it. So what’s up?”
    While testing the pens in my pen cup and tossing the duds, I build my defense in case he’s here in a preemptive strike to get me into trouble for closing early.
    “I need to speak with Jill if you can spare her for about five minutes.”
    He’s pulling down on his suit jacket with his fingertips. That’s when I realize he’s nervous—not here to get me in trouble but to beg me, the way he did when he was chasing down my car, not to get him in trouble.
    “Go ahead.” Even though Annalee sounds cheery, I can tell she’s wondering why someone from Corporate would want to talk to me and not her.
    R.J. and I wend our way through the store toward Philosophy and Religion. It’s in a quiet corner, a good place to talk. Normally I’d deeply savor such a moment as this: me, upper hand all the way, with something another person wants that I can choose to bestow or withhold. Except I’m not feeling the power. What I’m feeling is flustered that I could have been certain those were Dylan’s eyes on me. It’s so unnerving that I actually stumble on a carpet seam and have to right myself