Heart Like Mine A Novel - By Amy Hatvany Page 0,31

for wearing them. Their idea of appropriate clothes for school included two colors, black and white, and one shape—boxy.

“Maybe you need a tutor,” Jason said.

She smiled like she knew a secret and raised one of her eyebrows, another thing she’d practiced in front of her mirror. “Are you interested in the job?” she asked him. She couldn’t believe how bold she was being, but all of the articles she read in Cosmopolitan said men liked it when a woman showed confidence. In order to read the magazine, she had to sneak to the library after school, telling her parents she was doing homework. She was studying . . . in a way. Brushing up on how to get a boyfriend.

“That’s not the only job I’m interested in,” Jason said, and his friends Mike and Rory, who sat on the other side of him, snickered.

Kelli blushed again—her Cosmo textbook had taught her exactly what he meant—but kept smiling as she directed her attention to the front of the room, where their teacher was about to start class. Jason leaned over and nudged her leg with his fist. “You going to the basketball game Friday night?”

She shook her head. Her parents made her go to youth group at their church on Fridays, which was just about the most boring thing in the world.

“You should come,” Jason said. “I’m on the starting lineup this week. Maybe we could do something after.”

He was asking her out on a date! She forced herself to shrug, knowing boys also liked it if you played just a little bit hard to get. “Maybe,” she said. “I’ll see if I can.”

“Cool,” he said.

For the rest of class, Kelli didn’t hear a word of what was said. All she could think about was talking with Nancy, seeing if her friend could help her figure out a way to get to that basketball game. Nancy’s parents weren’t old, like Kelli’s. Nancy’s mother ran a local coffee shop and loved to tell jokes; her father was a sociology professor at Cal Poly who wore jeans to class just like his students. Kelli’s father was a bank manager who wore the same black slacks and white, short-sleeved shirt with a plaid bow tie to work every day. Her mother stayed home, shopping for groceries and cleaning their house, and hadn’t worn a pair of jeans in her life. They’d met at church in downtown San Luis Obispo more than thirty-five years ago and quickly married, thinking they’d start a family as soon as possible. Kelli hadn’t arrived for another twenty years—something they hadn’t expected, having already grown accustomed to a life on their own. Kelli was a blond ball of energy, bouncing into their lives and disrupting the peace. She’d always felt like they didn’t know what to do with her. They hoped for a daughter who liked to sit quietly and listen to stories; they had a daughter who raced into mud puddles. Kelli learned to separate herself into two different people—the one they wanted her to be and the one she was. As she got older, the side of her they didn’t approve of seemed harder to hide. Now that she was in high school especially, and there were dances to go to and dates to be had. She loved her parents, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could pretend to be the girl they imagined her to be.

Kelli sighed when the bell rang, thinking about how hard it would be to make it to the game on Friday, but gave Jason one last smile, letting her gaze linger on his for a moment, just to keep him interested. “Don’t forget,” he said, and she nodded, thrilled by the possibility that she might get to fall in love.

* * *

Kelli was only six when she realized her parents were different. Her mother would take her to the park after school, but while the other moms and dads chased after their children on the playground, Kelli’s would settle on a bench with a book, urging her to go play on her own. The other mothers chatted and laughed together, but Kelli’s mom tended to keep to herself. She had a few friends from their church, but none of them had children Kelli’s age.

One night, as her mother tucked her into bed and read her a story, Kelli noticed that her mother had wisps of silver strung through the honey-blond locks she had given her daughter. “Why do you have