Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick Page B

hovering over the display case. I pointed at my necklace, exhaling.
     

Chapter 20
     
    In eighth grade I found all Mom’s old photo albums stashed away in the hall closet by the bathroom. I’d been bored that day and leafing through her secret collection of historical novels—a tall pile of paperback books devoted to Henry VIII and all his sexy wives,
Catherine of Aragon, Catherine Howard, Anne Boleyn
, buxom ladies in corsets she kept stacked in the back of the closet next to the shoe rack. I’d been skimming a book on Jane Seymour, jumping from chapter to chapter in search of sex scenes (I did this biweekly), when I noticed something new: next to her stack of paperback wives were three or four puffy maroon photo albums I’d never seen before. I picked one up, cracked the spine, and there, staring back at me, were photos of my mother with some dude I didn’t recognize. He was hairy. He had a beard and wildhair and in every picture he was wearing the same pair of destroyed, bleached jeans.
     
    “Who is this?” I asked. We were standing in the kitchen. Mom was eating grapes out of plastic carton in front of the fridge.
     
    “Where’d you find that? My god,
me
, babe, that’s me.”
     
    “No, I know that’s you. I meant the guy. The hairy guy, who is he?”
     
    “Oh.” She popped another grape in her mouth. “That’s Michael. My college
boyfriend
.” She leaned into me, poking me in the ribs. I hated the word “boyfriend.” “He’s married now and lives in Calabasas.” Mom stopped to think for a second or two before shoving the grapes back into the fridge and shutting the door.
     
    “Can I borrow this?”
     
    “Yeah, sure. Why?”
     
    “I just want to look,” I said, pressing my hand against the puffy cover, then racing down the hall to my bedroom.
     
    Mom and Michael. So gorgeous. I loved their old clothes, tan skin, and slim bodies. I ran my hands across each page, fondling the edges of the yellowing clear plastic sheathing that lay over each collage of photos. I adored Michael: his hair, his jeans, the way he
gazed
at my mother in each photograph. They looked so happy together.
     
    “So, okay. I don’t get it.”
     
    This was later. We were out on the deck, in the sun,drinking sparkling cider out of champagne flutes. Mine had a tiny umbrella hanging off the lip of my glass. I pushed it to one side, then took a sip of my drink. “Why’d you and Michael break up?”
     
    Mom squirted a dollop of coconut-scented sunscreen into her palm and motioned for me to move closer. “What do you mean,
why
? I met your dad.” Then, “Here, come’ere, let me do your back.”
     
    I scooched closer, positioning myself so she could smear cream across my back. “But, why? Didn’t you love Michael? He really looked like he loved you.”
     
    “We were young, babe. We just … broke up. You know?”
     
    “But you looked so happy with Michael.”
     
    “Aren’t you glad Daddy and I got married?”
     
    “Yes, of course, but I don’t understand why things didn’t work out with you and Michael.”
     
    She twisted her long hair into a knot and smiled at me with her mouth shut. “We both just … I don’t know, babe, we both just loved other people more.”
     

Chapter 21
     
    “This is it, you know.”
     
    Nils and I were on our backs in The Shack.
     
    “What is?” he asked.
     
    We were lying side by side, fully clothed—jeans and sneakers—the two of us tucked in tight, cozy in our fleece-lined cocoons.
     
    “
This
. No more nights in The Shack after this. It’s over.”
     
    Every now and then, when Jeff had okayed it, we’d have sleepovers. Gross food, sleeping bags, bad music, Scrabble.
     
    “We have till the end of summer, Hols.”
     
    I stuck my hand into a bag of Doritos and delicately bit the corner off a chip. “Yeah but, that’s, like, two seconds away. And then we’re done. You’re gonna move to, like, Colonial Williamsburg or some nonsense and I’ll still be