I sigh. “How’s Tim dealing?”

“I think he’s up to three packs a day,” Nan says. “Cigarettes and Pixy Stix. But no sign of anything else…yet.” Her voice is resigned, clearly expecting to find evidence of worse at any moment. “He—” she starts, then falls silent as the side door of the classroom opens and a small beige woman and a tall sandy-haired man come in, introducing themselves as our proctors for this practice SAT. The woman runs through the procedures in a monotone, while the man wanders through the room, checking our IDs and handing out blue notebooks.

The air-conditioning blasts to a higher level, nearly drowning out the beige woman’s monotonous voice. Nan pulls a cardigan out of her backpack and scrabbles around to position a hoodie at the top, just in case. She sits back up, puts her elbows on the desk, leans her chin on her folded hands, and sighs. “I hate writing,” she says. “I hate everything about it. Grammar, usage…blech.” Despite the light tan she always acquires in the late summer, she looks pale under her freckles, only her sunburned nose betraying the season.

“You’re the big writing star,” I remind her. “You’ll coast through this. Lazlo Literary Anthology, remember? The SATs are the minor leagues for you.”

The tall blond man points extravagantly at the clock and the beige woman says “Shhh” and begins the countdown as solemnly as if we are blasting off at Cape Canaveral, rather than taking a practice test. “In ten, nine, eight…” I glance around the room. Everyone, evidently as driven as Nan, has their blue books and their pencils lined up in perfect symmetry. I look over again at Nan, to see her adjust the sleeve of her sweatshirt in her backpack again, allowing me, from my vantage point to the left and back to see the corner of her electronic dictionary peeking out from the light blue edge of her sweatshirt.

She’s staring at the clock, her mouth a grim line, her pencil so tightly held in her fingers it’s a wonder it doesn’t snap in half. Nan’s left-handed. Her right hand rests on her thigh, in quick-draw reach of her backpack.

Suddenly, I get these pictures in my head of the way Nan’s sat in test after test I’ve taken alongside her, always with her backpack leaned to the side, her hoodie or sweater or whatever draping out. Memories click into place, like frames of a film slowly forwarding one after another, and I realize this is no isolated incident. Nanny, my always-head-of-the-class best friend, Nan the star student, has been cheating for years.

Good thing for me it’s a practice test, because I can barely focus. All I can think about is what I saw, what I know for sure now. Nan doesn’t need to cheat. I mean, nobody needs to cheat, but Nan’s only ensuring a sure thing anyway. I mean, look at her essays.

Her essays.

Those files on Tim’s computer that I looked at, that I…

That I blamed Tim for stealing. The realization freezes me in place. Minutes tick by before I finally pick up my pencil and try to concentrate on the exam.

During break, I splash water on my face in the ugly aqua-tiled bathroom and try to figure out what to do. Tell the proctors? Out of the question. She’s my best friend. But…

As I’m standing there, staring into my own eyes, Nan comes up next to me, squirting antibacterial lotion on her hands and rubbing it up her arms as though scrubbing up for surgery.

“I don’t think it washes off,” I say, before I can think.

“What?”

“Guilt. Didn’t work for Lady Macbeth, did it?”

She turns white, then flushes, freckled translucent skin so quick to show both shades. She glances quickly around the bathroom, making sure we’re alone. “I’m thinking about the future,” she hisses. “My future. You may be happy hanging out at the garage with your handyman, eating Kraft macaroni and cheese, but I’m going to Columbia, Samantha. I’m going to get away from—” Her face crumples. “All of this.” She waves her hand. “Everything.”

“Nan.” I move toward her, arms outstretched.

“You too. You’re part of it all.” Turning, she stalks out of the bathroom, stopping only to scoop up her backpack, from which the sweatshirt sleeve dangles uselessly.

Did that really just happen? I feel sick. What just went wrong here? When did I become just another thing Nan wanted to escape?

Chapter Thirty-eight

The hotel ballroom’s stifling and overheated, like someone forgot to flip on the air-conditioning. It would probably make me drowsy even if I hadn’t gotten up at five this morning, restless, thinking about Nan, and gone to the ocean to swim. Not to mention that we’re in Westfield, the other end of the state, a long, long drive from home, and I’m constricted in my formal blue linen dress. There’s a big fountain in the middle of the room, and tables of finger sandwiches and buffet food set up around that. Out-of-season Christmas lights twinkle around statue reproductions of Venus rising from the waves and Michelangelo’s David, looking as sulky and out of place as I feel at this fund-raising rally. Mom makes her speech at the podium, flanked by Clay, and I struggle to stay conscious.

“You must be so proud of your mother,” people keep telling me, sloshing their fruity champagne cocktails over tiny plastic cups, and I repeat over and over again: “Oh, yes, I am. I am, yes.” My seat’s next to the podium and as Mom’s introduced, I can’t help tipping my head against it, until she gives me a sharp jab with her foot and I jerk back upright, willing my eyes open.

Finally she gives some sort of good-night summary speech and there’s lots of cheering and “Go Reed!” Clay rests his hand in the small of her back, propelling her, as we edge out into the night, which isn’t even really dark, kind of tea-colored, since we’re in the city. “You’re a wonder, Gracie. A twelve-hour day and still looking so fine.”

Mom gives a pleased laugh, then toys with her earring. “Honey?” She hesitates, then: “I just don’t understand why that Marcie woman has to be at just about every event of mine.”

“Was she there tonight?” Clay asks. “I didn’t notice. And I’ve told you—they send her the same way we had Tim out counting the cars at Christopher’s rallies, or Dorothy checking on his press conferences.”

I know this is the brunette woman. But Clay doesn’t sound like he’s trying to pull one over on Mom. He sounds like he genuinely didn’t realize “Marcie” was there.