Free Wherever Grace Is Needed by Elizabeth Bass Page A

older, Jordan started treating Lily like a pest, but even when Nina was with her school friends she sometimes invited Lily along to movies or whatever. Nina would play tennis with her, too, though Lily stank at tennis. Nina would laugh when Lily worried about not being good enough. “Who cares? It’s just to have fun together, right?”
    Lily’s throat tightened. She really shouldn’t think about Nina, not unless she was sure she was alone. She didn’t want to get all upset and set Dominic off. It had been horrible those first weeks to hear him crying in his room. Almost four months later, they were all just now getting back to normal. The new normal. That was what made Jordan’s return so especially awful. She was one of those people who seemed to rampage through life like a demented rhinoceros—as if she were the only person in the world and the rest of them were just little rodents who had to scatter or get squished.
    Something crashed upstairs, shaking the ceiling hard enough to set the light fixture over the dining room table swinging. What the heck was Jordan doing?
    Dominic ran into the kitchen, skidding the last few feet across the linoleum in his socks. “Did you hear that?!”
    “What’s going on?”
    Her brother’s entire torso lifted in a shrug. “I’ve knocked at the door, but she won’t let me in.”
    Lily bit her lip. She wondered if Jordan was doing drugs. That would explain why Granny Kate and Pop Pop had been in such a hurry to get rid of her. She’d asked her dad for details, but he wouldn’t explain anything.
    She dumped baking soda down the drain and flipped the garbage disposal switch. During the ten seconds the disposal was making its god-awful noise, Lily reconsidered her suspicions. Not that she knew anything about it, but she doubted taking drugs involved anything that sounded like dropping a large boulder on the hardwood floors. After she flipped the switch off and quiet descended on the kitchen again, she announced, “I’m going to find out.”
    Her brother barred her path. “You know how she is when she doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
    “So? Who does she think she is? The queen?”
    At that moment, Jordan herself slouched into the room. “I prefer empress, if you don’t mind. Or tsarina. Sounds more . . . well, like a bossy person.”
    Lily smirked. “I think the word your tiny brain is reaching for is dictatorial. ”
    “Yeah, whatever,” Jordan said. “Could you guys get the door if the bell rings? Some people are coming by.”
    “What people?” Lily hadn’t seen any of Jordan’s friends at the house in months and months. Did she still have any? “Who?”
    “Never mind,” Jordan said. “Just answer the door and show them up to my room.”
    Nina’s room. Lily fumed.
    “I’m not your maid,” Lily told her.
    “I’ll do it,” Dominic said quickly, before a fight could erupt.
    “Thanks, Dominickel.”
    When she was gone, Dominic turned back to Lily, who tried not to convey what a traitor she thought he was.
    Apparently her effort failed. “I’m just trying to help,” he said defensively.
    Lily was determined not to waste any more of her time thinking about whatever it was that Jordan was up to. She had more important things to do, like read Hamlet. Her original goal for the summer had been to read the complete works of Jane Austen, but that had taken her less than a month. After Pride and Prejudice she hadn’t been able to stop herself. It was like eating M&Ms. She’d just popped one down after another.
    It would take her more than a month to get through all of Shakespeare, she was pretty sure. Just this one play was probably going to take her more than a month. Every other line she had to stop and figure out what the heck was going on. She hadn’t even reached the part with Hamlet in it. There were just a lot of guys running around exclaiming, Tush! and Peace! and Stand, ho!
    Her task was made a little more difficult because she couldn’t stop