Free Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins Page A

are thick, and I need to trust them. I take a deep breath and step away, but I trip backward over my project and tear a pattern. I curse. Laughter comes from next door, and for one panicked second, I think they’ve witnessed my clumsy maneuver. But it’s paranoia talking. Whatever they’re laughing about has nothing to do with me. I hate that they can still get to me like that.
    I know what I need. I call him, and he picks up just before his voice mail.
    “HEY,” Max says.
    “Hi! How is it tonight? When are you guys going on?” The club is loud, and I can’t hear his response. “What?”
    “[MUFFLE MUFFLE] AFTER ELEVEN [MUFFLE].”
    “Oh. Okay.” I don’t have anything to add. “I miss you.”
    “[MUFFLE MUFFLE MUFFLE. MUFFLE.]”
    “What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you!”
    “[MUFFLE MUFFLE] BAD TIME [MUFFLE].”
    I assume he’s saying he has to go. “Okay! I’ll see you tomorrow! Bye!” A click on the other end, and he’s gone. I should have texted him. But I don’t want to now, because I don’t want to bother him. He doesn’t like talking before shows.
    The call leaves me feeling more cold than comforted. The laughter continues next door, and I resist the urge to throw my sewing shears at Cricket’s window to make them shut up. My phone rings, and I answer eagerly. “Max!”
    “I need you to tell Nathan to come get me.”
    Not Max.
    “Where are you?” I’m already hustling downstairs. Nathan is crashed in front of the television, eyes half closed, watching Antiques Roadshow with Heavens to Betsy. “Why can’t you tell him yourself?”
    “Because he’s gonna be pissed, and I can’t deal with pissed right now.” The voice is cranky and exhausted.
    I stop dead in my tracks. “Not again.”
    “Landlord changed my locks, so I was forced to break into my apartment. My own apartment. They’re calling it an incident.”
    “Incident?” I ask, and Dad’s eyes pop open. I thrust out my phone to him without waiting for a response, disgusted. “Norah needs you to bail her out.”
    Nathan swears and grabs my cell. “Where are you? What happened?” He pulls answers from her as he collects his car keys and throws on his shoes. “I’m taking your phone, okay?” he says to me. “Tell Andy where I’m going.” And he’s out the door.
    This is not the first time my birth mother has called us from a police station. Norah has a long record, and it’s always for stupid things like shoplifting organic frozen enchiladas or refusing to pay fines from the transit authority. When I was young, the charges were usually public intoxication or disorderly conduct. And believe me, a person has to be pretty darn intoxicated or disorderly to get arrested in this city.
    Andy takes the news silently. Our relationship with Norah is hard on everyone, but perhaps it’s hardest on him. She’s neither his sister nor his mother. I know a part of him wishes we could ditch her entirely. A part of me wishes that, too.
    When I was little, the Bell twins asked me why I didn’t have a mom. I told them that she was the princess of Pakistan—I’d overheard the name on the news and thought it sounded pretty—and she gave me to my parents, because I was a secret baby with the palace gardener, and her husband, the evil prince, would kill us if he knew I existed.
    “So you’re a princess?” Calliope asked.
    “No. My mom is a princess.”
    “That means you’re a princess, too,” Cricket said, awed.
    Calliope narrowed her eyes. “She’s not a princess. There’s no such thing as evil princes or Pakistan.”
    “There is, too! And I am!” But I still remember the hot rush of blood I felt when they came back later that afternoon, and I realized I’d been caught.
    Calliope crossed her arms. “We know the truth. Our parents told us.”
    “Does your mom really not have a house?” Cricket asked. “Is that why you can’t live with her?”
    It was one of the most shameful moments of my childhood. So when my