bunch of new kids in the middle of the year. But try to think of it as an adventure.”
His new homeroom teacher, who reminded him of his father but whose name Cole can no longer recall, made Cole stand in the front of the room and introduce himself. Cole had never felt so exposed. (That night he dreamed he was standing in front of a roomful of strangers again, this time naked.)
Hating the teacher, avoiding eye contact with the two kids he instantly picked out as bullies, he prayed his voice would not crack. One bully glared at him the whole time; the other kept his eyes mostly shut. A boy in the front row with a face practically buried under freckles listened to every word with his mouth open, as if Cole were explaining sex. Two girls farther back put their blond heads together and whispered about him (what else?). Everyone else looked as if they weren’t listening, Mr. What’s-his-name (staring out the window) included.
Cole kept it short. He was from Chicago, he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, his father was a history professor, his mother was a lawyer. Or rather she used to be a lawyer, but not anymore.
A hand shot up. (The teacher had encouraged questions.) How come his mother stopped being a lawyer?
Cole shrugged. She didn’t like it, he said. He did not say because it was a dull, heartless profession full of people who cared only about money, as his mother always said when people asked her.
His father used to say, “Serena, you should’ve been born rich. You’re just not cut out to work.” But in fact, except for right after Cole was born, his mother had always worked at one job or another. It was true she had hated most of those jobs. But about a year before they moved she’d started working as the manager of a small theater company, a job she had loved. “If only it paid more!” (Always, the problem was money.)
Cole didn’t tell any of this to the class. He didn’t say anything about the fights his parents had had about moving. His mother said it wasn’t fair. Just when she’d finally found a job that was right for her! She blew up when his father said she could always find something similar where they were going.
“Don’t patronize me, Miles.”
Then it was his father’s turn to blow up.
“Let me get this straight. I’m supposed to pass up a great opportunity just so you can keep working for a nonprofit company that pays shit, and that you’ll probably end up leaving anyway as soon as the novelty wears off?”
“But you don’t even like teaching. All you ever do is complain.”
“It’s a great fucking job!”
“It’s in fucking Indiana!”
In the middle of fucking nowhere, was how she usually described it. Not even a major city. “Like there are really major cities in Indiana anyway,” she told her sister as she wiped her eyes—tears not from crying but from laughing at the name of the town: Little Leap.
No major cities. And no such place as Big Leap, either.
Aunt Addy lived in Germany but had come to Chicago for Christmas.
“I mean, the people are all right-wing, the climate sucks, there’s no music or theater. There are no museums, no decent restaurants.” The pills his mother was taking to make her less negative were not working at all. “All anyone cares about is fucking basketball. At least, I think it’s basketball.” Cole rolled his eyes.
Aunt Addy was more than his mother’s sister: she was her twin. He never saw much of her because she lived overseas. She was good at languages and worked as a translator and an interpreter for an international bank. She hated America, even to visit, and came back as seldom as possible.
“There are some twins who always dress alike and do everything together,” his mother told him. “But Addy and I were never like that. Even as kids we rebelled against matching outfits, and as soon as we were old enough we got different hairstyles.” Nowadays their hair was pretty much the same, short and fluffy, partly dark and partly light. But of course they were rarely seen together.
Aunt Addy had Total Freedom, his mother always said. Meaning she wasn’t married and she didn’t have kids.
Cole’s father was a runner, a racer, a winner of marathons. In college his nickname had been Miles-and-miles. Though he didn’t compete anymore, he still ran every morning to stay in shape.
When she was in