I’ve been sewing for three years, and I’m pretty decent. I started with the small stuff, like everyone does—hemming, A-line skirts, pillowcases—but quickly moved on to bigger items, each more complex than the last. I’m not interested in making what’s easy.

I’m interested in making what’s beautiful.

I lose myself in the process: tracing out patterns on tissue paper, fitting them together, retracing, and refitting. Nonsewers don’t realize how much problem solving goes into garment making, and beginners often quit in frustration. But I enjoy the puzzle. If I looked at this dress as one massive

thing,

it would be too overwhelming. No one could create such a gown. But by breaking it into tiny, individual steps, it becomes something I can achieve.

When my room finally grows too dark, I’m forced to rise from the floor and plug in my twinkle lights. I stretch my sore muscles and stare at my window.

Will he come home this weekend?

The idea fills me with unease. I don’t understand why he’s been asking Andy and St. Clair questions about me. There are only three possible solutions, each more improbable than the last. Maybe he’s not making friends at school and, for some twisted reason, has decided I’d make a decent pal again. I mean, he’s come home for the last two weekends. Obviously no one is interesting enough to keep him in Berkeley. Or maybe he feels bad about how things ended between us, and he’s trying to make up for it. Clear his conscience.

Or . . . maybe . . . he likes me. In that other way.

I was fine before he came back, perfectly happy without this complication. It would’ve been better if he’d ignored me. Calliope and I haven’t talked yet; there’s no reason why Cricket and I should have to either. I drift toward my window, and I’m surprised to discover striped curtains hanging in his room.

And then his light turns on.

I yank my curtains closed. My heart pounds as I back against the wall. Through the gap between curtain fabrics, I watch a silhouette that is undeniably Cricket Bell toss two bags to his floor—one shoulder bag and one laundry bag. He moves toward our windows, and dread lurches inside of me. What if he calls my name?

There’s a sudden brightness as he pulls back his own curtains. His body changes from a dark shadow into a fully fleshed human. I slink back farther. He pauses there, and then startles as another figure enters his room. I can barely hear the sound of a girl talking. Calliope.

I can’t hide forever. My curtains are thick, and I need to trust them. I take a deep breath and step away, but I trip backward over my project and tear a pattern. I curse. Laughter comes from next door, and for one panicked second, I think they’ve witnessed my clumsy maneuver. But it’s paranoia talking. Whatever they’re laughing about has nothing to do with me. I hate that they can still get to me like that.

I know what I need. I call him, and he picks up just before his voice mail.

“HEY,” Max says.

“Hi! How is it tonight? When are you guys going on?” The club is loud, and I can’t hear his response. “What?”

“[MUFFLE MUFFLE] AFTER ELEVEN [MUFFLE].”

“Oh. Okay.” I don’t have anything to add. “I miss you.”

“[MUFFLE MUFFLE MUFFLE. MUFFLE.]”

“What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you!”

“[MUFFLE MUFFLE] BAD TIME [MUFFLE].”

I assume he’s saying he has to go. “Okay! I’ll see you tomorrow! Bye!” A click on the other end, and he’s gone. I should have texted him. But I don’t want to now, because I don’t want to bother him. He doesn’t like talking before shows.

The call leaves me feeling more cold than comforted. The laughter continues next door, and I resist the urge to throw my sewing shears at Cricket’s window to make them shut up. My phone rings, and I answer eagerly. “Max!”

“I need you to tell Nathan to come get me.”

Not Max.

“Where are you?” I’m already hustling downstairs. Nathan is crashed in front of the television, eyes half closed, watching

Antiques Roadshow

with Heavens to Betsy. “Why can’t you tell him yourself?”

“Because he’s gonna be pissed, and I can’t deal with pissed right now.” The voice is cranky and exhausted.

I stop dead in my tracks. “Not again.”

“Landlord changed my locks, so I was forced to break into my apartment. My

own

apartment. They’re calling it an incident.”

“Incident?” I ask, and Dad’s eyes pop open. I thrust out my phone to him without waiting for a response, disgusted. “Norah needs you to bail her out.”

Nathan swears and grabs my cell. “Where are you? What happened?” He pulls answers from her as he collects his car keys and throws on his shoes. “I’m taking your phone, okay?” he says to me. “Tell Andy where I’m going.” And he’s out the door.

This is not the first time my birth mother has called us from a police station. Norah has a long record, and it’s always for stupid things like shoplifting organic frozen enchiladas or refusing to pay fines from the transit authority. When I was young, the charges were usually public intoxication or disorderly conduct. And believe me, a person has to be pretty darn intoxicated or disorderly to get arrested in this city.

Andy takes the news silently. Our relationship with Norah is hard on everyone, but perhaps it’s hardest on him. She’s neither his sister nor his mother. I know a part of him wishes we could ditch her entirely. A part of me wishes that, too.

When I was little, the Bell twins asked me why I didn’t have a mom. I told them that she was the princess of Pakistan—I’d overheard the name on the news and thought it sounded pretty—and she gave me to my parents, because I was a secret baby with the palace gardener, and her husband, the evil prince, would kill us if he knew I existed.

“So you’re a princess?” Calliope asked.

“No. My mom is a princess.”

“That means you’re a princess, too,” Cricket said, awed.

Calliope narrowed her eyes. “She’s not a princess. There’s no such thing as evil princes or Pakistan.”

“There is, too! And I am!” But I still remember the hot rush of blood I felt when they came back later that afternoon, and I realized I’d been caught.

Calliope crossed her arms. “We know the truth. Our parents told us.”

“Does your mom really not have a house?” Cricket asked. “Is that why you can’t live with her?”

It was one of the most shameful moments of my childhood. So when my classmates began asking, I kept it simple: “I don’t know who she is. I’ve never met her.” I became a regular adoption story, a boring one. Having two fathers isn’t an issue here. But a few years ago, Cricket and I were watching television when he turned to me and unexpectedly asked, “Why do you pretend like you don’t have a mom?”

I squirmed. “Huh?”

Cricket was messing with a paper clip, bending it into a complicated shape. “I mean, she’s okay now. Right?” He meant sober, and she had been for a year. But she was still Norah.

I just

looked

at him.

And I could see him remembering the past. The Bells had heard my screaming birth mother for years, whenever she’d show up wasted and unannounced.

He lowered his eyes and dropped the subject.

I’m grateful that my genetics don’t bother Max. His father is a mean drunk who lives in a dangerous neighborhood of Oakland, and he doesn’t even know where his mother lives. If anything, Norah makes my relationship with Max stronger. We understand each other.

I leave Andy and head back upstairs. Through my window, I notice Calliope has left Cricket’s bedroom. He’s pacing. My torn pattern mocks me. The sumptuous, pale blue fabrics stacked on my sewing table have lost their luster. I touch them gently. They’re still soft. They still hold the promise of something better.