Free Loving Emily by Anne Pfeffer Page B

them over for dinner. It figures, I think with a flash of anger, that we kids aren’t enough to make them stay home at night. They need a
good
reason, like the Westons coming over.
    We’re all sitting around our big dining table, with Nat on my right and Yancy across from me. It hurts me to see only seven places at the table. From the sad way that Maddy and Molly are picking at their food, I can see that they’re feeling it, too.
    Mom sits next to Yancy with an arm around her shoulder. People always say Yancy’s beautiful, but I think if you took away the fancy clothes and hair, no one would ever look at her twice.
    Tonight, she has this lost, sad look on her face. Both she and Nat look older and really tired. Nat’s a handsome guy—Michael took after him—but now his face is puffy, like he’s acquired an extra chin. He speaks only occasionally and his hands shake through dinner.
    We sit for a long time at the table and share memories of Michael. I don’t say much, since I still haven’t forgiven my folks or the Westons for what they did when he overdosed.
    “Remember that summer on Martha’s Vineyard?” Mom says. Dad and Nat were filming a movie, and we were all living together in this big house we had rented. “When Michael and Ryan slept in a tent in the backyard every single night? They never used their bedroom at all, except to store their clothes!”
    “During tennis matches,” Maddy says, “any time Michael had to change sides, he would always do a crazy jump over the net instead of walking around. It was so funny!”
    “And he put fourteen cherry tomatoes in his mouth one time!” Molly says.
    “He did?” Yancy says. “I never saw him do that!”
    “I think you were in Barcelona that day,” I say in a bored tone. Heat crawls down my spine, as the room gets quiet.
    “Ryan.” My dad’s voice holds a warning. He goes on, “
I
remember when he broke his leg snowboarding, and the Ski Patrol had to bring him down the mountain.”
    “Of course, he had to do it on the first day of our trip,” Nat says. For the rest of the trip, we had all taken turns staying at the hotel to play Scrabble and Monopoly with him during the day, while the others skied.
    All of a sudden, Yancy starts to cry. “We made so many mistakes.” She twists her hands together, while my mom puts both arms around her.
    Even I feel a little bad for her then. If that baby of Chrissie’s were Michael’s, it would mean everything to Nat and Yancy—to all of us, really. But it’s not.
    “We’re suing the Breakers Club,” she says, her lips set in a thin line. “For negligence. When the valets gave Michael his car.”
    “You’re gonna win,” Dad says.
    I wonder what they think that’s going to accomplish. It sure as heck won’t bring Michael back.
    She answers my unspoken question. “If it stops them from doing it again, it’ll be worth it. Nadine, we’re going to give any settlement we receive to the Teen League.”
    Mom nods her head, looking sober. “That’s a great idea.”
    “What’s the Teen League?” I ask.
    “Yancy and I are on the Board there,” Mom says. “They give support to disadvantaged teens, including counseling for drug and alcohol abuse. They help a lot of kids.”
    Too bad Michael didn’t get any help.
    Yancy tears up again and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. She turns to me. “You were with him his last hours. What did he say to you? What was he thinking?” She digs in her bag for tissues. Even the candlelight on the table cannot soften the hard lines around her mouth and eyes.
    They’re all looking at me, waiting for my answer. She has to know the thoughtless, reckless way Michael spent his last evening on earth. What does she want me to say to her?
    Then something comes to me: Michael’s last five minutes of conscious life were in his Mustang, the car he loved, barreling down Pacific Coast Highway. For Michael, it didn’t get much better than that. When he was thrown