Tara Kelly - Harmonic Feedback

HARMONIC

FEEDBACK

TARA KELLY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Publishers since 1866

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10010

www.HenryHoltKids.comHenry Holt ®is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Copyright © 2010 by Tara Kelly

All rights reserved.

Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kelly, Tara.

Harmonic feedback / Tara Kelly.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: When Drea and her mother move in with her grandmother in Bellingham, Washington, the sixteen-year-old finds that she can have real friends, in spite of her Asperger’s, and that even when you love someone it does not make life perfect.

ISBN 978-0-8050-9010-9

[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Emotional problems—Fiction. 3. Self-perception—Fiction. 4. Asperger’s syndrome—Fiction. 5. Drug abuse—Fiction. 6. Rock music—Fiction. 7. Bellingham (Wash.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.K2984Har 2010

[Fic]—dc222009024150First Edition—2010

Printed in the United States of America1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

ONE IN THIRTY-EIGHT. Bet on a single number in roulette, and those are the odds of winning. Getting struck by lightning is a little more difficult—one in seven hundred thousand. Winning the lottery? Forget it.

But the odds of me ending up homeless were pretty good. Moving in with Grandma Horvath was Mom’s worst idea yet.

“It’s beautiful here, don’t you think?” Mom asked, cutting the engine.

I shrugged and looked out the passenger window at Grandma’s house, a turn-of-the-century shack the color of pea soup. My initial impression of Washington was simple—they had trees here. And as far as I could see, that was about it.

I pushed open the squeaky door of Mom’s Toyota Corolla. It was late August, and we’d just driven the 896 miles from San Francisco to Bellingham with a broken air conditioner. Even my toes were sweaty.

“It’s past six,” Grandma Horvath called out to Mom as she scurried out the front door. “You said you’d be here before five.” I hadn’t seen her for five years, but she looked exactly the same—frizzy gray hair, sharp eyes, and a pointy mouth smeared with her favorite pink lipstick.

“I’m sorry. We got caught in rush-hour traffic.” Mom gave her a quick embrace.

“And you couldn’t use that mobile phone you waste your money on?” Grandma pulled back, taking in Mom’s outfit. “You’re too old to be wearing such revealing shirts.”

Mom ducked away and opened the back of the trailer we’d towed. “My battery died back in Portland.”

“Andrea, give me a kiss.” Grandma’s wedding ring scratched my arm as she pecked my cheek, and I cringed because she smelled like perfume in a public bathroom.

“My name is Drea.”

“That’s not what your birth certificate says.” She reached for my blue lunch box. “What does someone your age need a lunch box for?”

I shoved it behind my back. “It’s my purse. Don’t touch it.”

Grandma made a clucking sound with her tongue and joined Mom at the back of the trailer. “My neighbor recommended a good doctor for Andrea’s behavior problems.”

“What about your behavior problems, Grandma?”

“Drea, please.” Mom rubbed her temples, which meant another migraine was coming on.

Grandma’s lips formed a thin line. “You spoiled her, Juliana.” She turned on her heel and walked away. Her shoulders were nearly up to her ears by the time she got to the porch.

I’d promised Mom I’d be good. Ignore her , she said. It will make our stay a lot more peaceful, and we’ve got nowhere else to go right now . Did we ever? We always found somewhere, though; Mom either moved in with a guy or managed to stay at a job longer than six months. Even living with her last boyfriend was a step up from Grandma Horvath. He stole my razors to shave his chest and obsessed over his twenty-nine-inch waist, but Mom dated all kinds of guys. The one thing they had in common was they went away—whether they left her or we left them.

“Did you take your meds?” I knew Mom’s eyes were narrow behind her shades. She did this squinty thing when she asked a question I didn’t like.

“Nope. I don’t feel like being a zombie today.”

“Yeah, well.” Mom set my acoustic guitar case on the ground. “You’d feel a lot better if you took them every day like you’re supposed to.”

I opened my lunch box and grabbed one of three orange bottles. “This is speed in a bottle.”

“It gets you to think before you speak. I call that a miracle in a bottle.” She tied her wavy blond hair into a ponytail, but strands stuck to her neck.

“You can’t fix everything with pills.”

Mom held her hand up, fingers spread wide. Her stop sign. “I’m not getting into this right now, Drea.”

“You never want to get into it.”

Mom sighed and put her hand on my cheek. “I know you’re mad, baby. But we’re stuck until I find a job.” She nodded toward Grandma’s house. “And Grandma is helping us out a lot. Medi-Cal won’t cover us up here. She’s offered to pay for your doctor visits and meds for now. So, please, please don’t antagonize her, okay?”

“She talks to you like you’re five.”

Mom rubbed her temples. “She’s difficult—yes—but she means well.”

“Living out of your old pickup truck was better than this.”

Mom smirked and handed me a box of effect pedals for my guitar. “Oh, yeah? Do you miss Cheetos that much?”

My stomach turned at just the thought. Mom decided to go to some campground in California once where the only sign of life was a dirty gas station. I lived on cherry cola and ninety-nine-cent bags of Cheetos because I didn’t trust anything there that didn’t come in a sealed bag or bottle.

“I’m going to take these in,” I said, right before colliding with a strange girl standing behind me.

She looked about my age but stood a couple inches taller. Judging from the band on her T-shirt, she had horrible taste in music. “Hi, you’re Andrea, right?”

“It’s Drea.”

Mom heaved a sigh behind me. She thought I was being rude when I didn’t offer a bubbly hello and plaster a big smile on my face. Strangers made me nervous; I always ended up saying too much or too little.

The girl grinned even wider, and her blue eyes sparkled despite the dark eye shadow around them. “I’m Naomi. I live in that light blue matchbox across the street.” She nodded to an aging house with an overgrown yard. “My dad sent me over to ask if you needed any help.”

“Definitely. Thanks for offering.” Mom smiled and held out her hand to Naomi. “I’m Juli. It’s nice to meet you.”

Naomi tucked a lock of tangled purple hair behind her ear, revealing a skull stud. “You too.” She glanced back at me, her eyes falling on my guitar case. “Dude, you play guitar?”

“Yes.” I played a mean rhythm, but processing and manipulating sound through my computer was my passion. Unfortunately, most people didn’t understand the concept of sound design. Mom told me not to bring it up unless someone asked.

Naomi grabbed a box and followed me into the house. I caught a whiff of something that smelled like boiled cabbage and potpourri. “Don’t ask me what that smell is because I have no clue,” I said over my shoulder, heading downstairs to the basement.

Naomi giggled. “It’s cool. You should see it when my dad tries to make egg salad. He burns the eggs every time, and our house smells like a sewer for a week.”