My Life With the Walter Boys by Ali Novak
In loving memory of my father whose unbelievable strength still inspires me. Dad, during our last Christmas together I promised you I would never give up on my dream. Here it is.
Prologue
I never felt bad for Romeo and Juliet.
Don’t get me wrong. The play’s a classic, and Shakespeare was by all means a literary genius, but I just don’t understand how two people who barely knew each other could give up their lives so willingly.
It was for love, people argue—true, everlasting love. But in my opinion, that’s a load of garbage. Love takes more than a couple days and a secret, shotgun marriage to develop into something worth dying for.
I’ll admit that Romeo and Juliet were passionate. But their passion was so intense, so destructive, that it got them killed. I mean, the entire play is driven by their impulsive decisions. Don’t believe me? Take Juliet, for example. What girl’s first thought would be to marry the son of her father’s mortal enemy after she catches him spying outside her bedroom window? Not mine, that’s for sure. So that’s really why they lost my sympathy vote. There was no preparation—or even thinking, for that matter. They just did, regardless of the consequences. When you don’t plan ahead, things get messy.
And after what happened three months ago, after my life was completely thrown off course, a messy love life was the last thing I needed.
Chapter 1
I didn’t own a single pair of jeans. It’s crazy, I know, because what sixteen-year-old girl doesn’t have at least one pair, maybe with a tear in the left knee or a heart doodled across the thigh in Sharpie?
It wasn’t that I disliked the way they looked, and it had nothing to do with the fact that my mother had been a fashion designer, especially considering that she used jeans in her collections all the time. But I was a firm believer in the phrase “dress to impress,” and today I was definitely going to need to make an impression.
“Jackie?” I heard Katherine call from somewhere inside the apartment. “The taxi is here.”
“Just a minute!” I scooped a piece of paper off my desk. “Laptop, charger, mouse,” I muttered, reading off the rest of the checklist. Opening my satchel, I searched for my possessions to make sure they were safely tucked inside. “Check, check, check,” I whispered when my fingers brushed against all three things. With a bright red pen, I marked an X next to each of them on my list.
There was a knock on my bedroom door. “You ready, honey?” Katherine asked, poking her head inside. She was a tall woman in her late forties, with golden hair that was cut into a mom bob and starting to gray.
“I think so,” I told her, but my voice cracked, revealing otherwise. My gaze snapped down to my feet because I didn’t want to see the look in her eyes—the sympathetic one that I’d seen on everyone’s faces since the funeral.
“I’ll give you a moment,” I heard her say.
When the door clicked shut, I smoothed down my skirt as I glanced in the mirror. My long, dark curls were straightened and tied back with a blue ribbon like always, not a single strand out of place. The collar on my blouse was crooked, and I fidgeted with it until my reflection was seamless. I pursed my lips in annoyance at the purple circles under my eyes, but there was nothing I could do to fix the lack of sleep that was causing them.
Sighing, I took one last look around my room. Even though my entire checklist was crossed off, I didn’t know when I would be returning, and I didn’t want to forget anything important. The space was strangely empty, since most of my possessions were on a moving truck bound for Colorado. It had taken me a week to pack it all, but Katherine had helped me with the huge task.
Clothing had filled most of the boxes, but there were also my collection of Shakespeare plays and the teacups my sister, Lucy, and I had collected from every country we had ever visited. As I glanced around, I knew I was stalling; with my organizational skills, there was no way I’d forget anything. The real issue was that I didn’t want to leave New York—not one bit.
But I didn’t have a say in the matter, so with reluctance I grabbed my carry-on. Katherine was waiting for me out in the hall, one small suitcase sitting at her feet.
“Have everything?” she asked, and I nodded my head. “All right, let’s get going then.”
She led the way through the living room and toward the front door, and I trailed slowly behind her, running my hands over the furniture in an attempt to memorize every last detail of my home. It was hard, which was strange considering I’d lived here my entire life. The white sheets thrown over the furniture so dust wouldn’t frost the fabric were like solid walls, holding my recollections at bay.