Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen Read Free Book Online Page A

her Victoria’s Secret PINK shorts. She lies on her stomach and starts to breathe on a sleep cycle almost right away—before Hannah even has a chance to ask her which TV show she wants to watch—so Hannah lies down next to her and re-memorizes the familiar sound of her breathing. The fan blades circle overhead, moving the air in the room so that it washes over them in gentle waves, occasionally carrying Baker’s scent to Hannah like a bee carries pollen to a flower.
     
    Sometimes, with her heart beating strong in her chest, Hannah realizes that Baker does not belong to the rest of them. “You’re too good,” Hannah tells her, meaning every word sincerely, offering this truth with a degree of wonder she’s never felt for any other human. “I’m not,” Baker insists, her long, dark eyebrows drawing together in surprise. But Hannah knows it from fall semesters spent cheering Baker on at her volleyball matches, when Baker would score serve after serve after serve while the crowd and her teammates screamed their applause, and then Baker would approach the opposite team’s captain, the girl who had been crying at the end of the match, and whisper in her ear at the corner of the court when no one was looking. Hannah knows it at a party in mid-February, when she walks upstairs to find Baker sitting on her knees in the hallway with her arm wrapped around a sophomore girl. “It’s okay,” Baker soothes while she rubs the girl’s back. “Your name’s Ally, right? You’re going to be okay.” “I feel sick,” the girl says, her voice coming out like the compressed cry of a feverish child, “I want to go home.” “We’ll take you home,” Baker says, her voice light and gentle and filling up Hannah’s heart. “We’re going to get you some water first. My friend Hannah’s here, and she’s the best person you could ever know. She’ll help me take care of you.”
    “You’re too good,” Hannah says after they take the girl home.
    “I’m not,” Baker promises. “You would have done the same.”
    “I don’t know that I would have,” Hannah says honestly.
    “But I do,” Baker says with her deep, dark eyes.
    Hannah knows that Baker does not see in herself the same miracle of goodness Hannah sees in her. She knows that Baker struggles to measure up to her brother, that she desperately craves her mother’s approval, that she worries constantly about whether or not she’s a fair team captain or an effective student council president. “You’re amazing,” Hannah wants to tell her. “You’re the best thing that’s ever been.” But Hannah knows that Baker, when she’s not smiling at parties and laughing with their friends in the parking lot, carries these secret worries in her heart, worries that Hannah wishes she knew the full extent of, worries that Hannah sees in Baker’s eyes when Baker thinks no one is looking.
    “You’re so much better than you even know,” Hannah says one afternoon when they’re sitting in Baker’s car, talking through Baker’s latest argument with her mom. “You’re just—you’re so—I wish you could believe me—”
    “What’s funny,” Baker says, blinking down at their sun-spoiled sweet teas in the console, “is that, when I tell you these same things about yourself, I wish you could believe me, too.”

     
     
     
    Chapter Three: Mardi Gras
     
    “I’m having a Mardi Gras party,” Clay tells them in mid-February. “Tuesday night. My parents will be in New Orleans.”
    “You sure you want to volunteer for that?” Hannah asks him. “Those parties are notoriously crazy—”
    “No they’re not. Think about how many people go out of town for Mardi Gras. You know, skiing and shit. And then you’ve got the people that go down to New Orleans. But we’re all staying here, and a lot of prime people are staying here, so why not make something out of it? Ethan threw a Mardi Gras party when he was a senior and he said it was the best party St. Mary’s had