Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner Read Free Book Online

given me a contract for three operas, and you know how rare that is!"
    "Three months is a long time," I said, my voice cracking. "You'll miss the school musical." We were doing West Side Story, with boys brought in from Episcopal, and I'd landed the part of Anita, a coup due mostly, I figured, to Pimm's lack of altos. But somehow the lowcut blouse and long black wig had given me a confidence I'd never felt in all my years of voice lessons. I'd been imagining opening night, my mother handing me a dozen red roses, her eyes wide with astonished approval. Kate, you're really good! she'd say.
    Reina sat down on the satin coverlet on her bed, rubbed a scuff mark off the toe of one glossy black leather boot, then took my hands in hers.
    "I'll miss you so much, you have no idea, but I have to do this now." She got to her feet and kept packing, boots drumming against the hardwood floor, skirt belling around her, and as she piled clothes and books and compact discs into her trunks, she explained about biology, about time, about how a singer has only so many years before her tone and control start to go. "First I'll lose my flexibility, and then..." She shuddered, a grimace of distaste pursing her painted red lips. "Character roles and fund-raising."
    "Maybe you could come back for the weekend," I suggested. "For West Side Story. "
    "You know what flying does to my voice," she said. I hung my head. No Reina on opening night, no Reina for the Spring Ball, which I actually had a date for.
    She snapped the latch of the trunk shut, then gathered her perfume bottles on the dresser, her long nails clicking against their cut-glass sides. Then she brushed my bangs out of my eyes. I squirmed away. I wanted her to hold me. I didn't want her to touch me. I didn't want her to leave. I didn't want her to ever come back.
    The next morning I ignored her when she tapped on my door at six a.m., and pretended not to hear her whispering my name. I lay facedown on my bed, a copy of Lace under my left cheek, and thought about whether things could have ever been different. If I'd worn the makeup she'd bought for me, the soft leather boots and suede coat instead of baggy jeans and sweatshirts, would she have stayed? If I'd called myself Maria Katerina instead of Kate, if I'd practiced until sheer force of will had transformed my voice, my instrument, into something rare and beautiful, could it have kept her on the same continent as my father and me?
    I pushed myself off the bed and looked down at the street, my forehead resting on the cool windowpane, my knees digging into the milk crates where I kept my novels, chewing at the ends of my ponytail as a limousine pulled up to the curb and my mother walked out the door. I watched as the driver spent fifteen minutes wedging all of her luggage into the trunk. I saw my father kiss her, then step back into the dark little doorway, handing her over to the driver, and her future: another airplane, another country, another opera, another three months of dying every night. The driver held the door. My mother shaded her eyes and looked up at my window. I love you, she mouthed. I bit down hard on my hair as she blew me a kiss.

Six
    When I walked out onto the porch and into another perfect Connecticut afternoon the next day to collect the newspapers, I heard a car roaring down our cul-de-sac. My heart lifted as a bright red Porsche Boxster veered into the driveway. It was, I thought, the perfect car for a woman who drove maybe once a month. Badly.
    "Janie!"
    "So much for safety in the suburbs," said my best friend, scowling at me from behind her designer sunglasses. She wore a chocolate brown suede skirt that ended just above her knees, a soft cowl-neck cashmere sweater, and bright red cowgirl boots. Her hair was long and light brown streaked with honey and amber, her small mouth was glossed a shiny pink, her close-set eyes were artfully enhanced with liner and mascara, and her handbag and earrings probably cost more than