Fixing Delilah

Before you even start reading this amazing book, I just wanna let you know I did NOT make this novel or write it. It's my favorite and I thought I would share it with you! Go check out Sarah Ocklers other amazing books. I'll post more evenutally!

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Chapter One

"Claire? It's Rachel. I'm afraid I have some bad news."

Chapter Two

Mom and I didn't sleep last night. She spent the pre-dawn hours packing and mail-forwarding and making lists with colored Sharpies while I hung out on the couch, drinking cold coffee and trying not to ask too many questions. I was in enough trouble already-and that was before Aunt Rachel's phone call sent her into overdrive and hijacked my summer plans.

"Here we go," Mom says now, clicking the power locks and backing us down the driveway in the dark blue Lexus sedan. Actually, it's a black sapphire pearl Lexus sedan, not dark blue. The bill for the custom paint job is tacked to the bulletin board over my desk-a constant reminder that I still owe her for the dent-and-scratch combo I added when she was out of town last month.

Including the backpack between my feet and a long black dress for the funeral, I brought three bags of stuff for the whole tragic summer. The rest of the black sapphire pearl trunk and the cashmere leather interior is full of Mom's matching luggage and carefully labeled boxes of file folders, gel pens, computer cables, a printer-scanner-fax machine, and-should she be required during our dysfunctional family trip to showcase her management prowess-a collection of smartly tailored pantsuits in taupe, navy, and classic black.

"Left turn in four. Hundred. Feet."

An invisible electronic woman navigates us toward the highway from the distant planet monotone, where everyone is tranquil and directionally adept, but Mom isn't listening. As vice president of marketing for DKI Group-"the most prestigious branding firm on the east coast"-Mom gets multi-tasking. She could eat a bagel, scan the morning headlines, and get to I-78 with her eyes closed. Even deprived of sleep she drives effortlessly, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping manicured fingers into the dash-mounted touch-screen phone. It takes her eight separate calls to her assistant's voicemail to convey what I did in one text message to my non-boyfriend, Finn:

major family shit going down. off 2 vermont 4 the summer. L8trs.

"Merge on right. In one. Point five. Miles."

Mom checks her rearview and eases the Lexus into the right lane. "Eyes on the road, mind on the goal, and everything will be okay," she says, patting the steering wheel. It's her corporate road-warrior mantra, and she's already said it three times this morning. Usually, Mom's mantras are pretty poster-worthy. Mom on doing homework without her help: The more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Mom on working weekends: You've got to plant the seeds of hard work to reap the harvest of a satisfied client. Mom on home cooking: I'm stuck at the office tonight, Del. There's money in the coffee canister for pizza or Indian.

I want to believe her today, but the view isn't looking too hot from the passenger seat.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I'm really not the car-denting kind of girl. I'm also not the lipstick-stealing, school-skipping, off-in-the-woods-with-someone-I-barely-know kind of girl, or the kind who loses all of her dignity over a scandalous cell phone picture on a trashy blog. But that is the evidence, exhibits A through E, all stacked up against me, and now I'm like the bad guy on one of those cop shows, handcuffed to an airplane seat. Only instead of getting the handsome, tough-but-emotionally-wounded police escort, I'm stuck on a seven-hour road trip with Commander Mom and her arsenal of mobile communications devices.

I turn away from her and put on my sunglasses so she can't see the tears stinging my eyes, but it's too late.

"Delilah, we've been over this already. You can't stay here in Key. Period." She says it like it's some big edict passed down by the Supreme Court. It's all I can do not to play the "I wish my father was around, because he'd [insert better parenting strategy here]" card.

Mom continues, tapping my leg for emphasis. "It's not just the sneaking out or the shoplifting (tap tap tap)."

"How many times do I have to tell you?" I ask. "It was an accident!" It was. I didn't even realize the lipstick was still in my hand when I walked out of Blush Cosmetics yesterday, bored and tired from wandering the mall alone.

"An accident," Mom says. "Like the car? Like your grades?" She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter, Delilah. There's a lot of work to do up there (tap tap tap). Other issues aside, you'd still be going with me."

Right. I'm letting her think she's won an important strategic battle in our ongoing war, but if things were different between us, more like they used to be, I'd want to go-not just because I need a break from Finn and pretty much everyone else in Pennsylvania, but because nothing would be as important as helping my mother and aunt through this tragedy and tying up its many loose ends-the three remaining Hannaford women united and strong as an unsinkable ship.

But things aren't different. She's her and I'm me and surrounding us is an ocean of mess and misunderstanding, full of pirates and sharks just waiting to see who slips in first.

"Stay on interstate. Seventy-eight for. Fifty. Miles."

After the directive, Mom cranks the air and switches off the freakishly calm GPS woman. Back here on planet stress, it's just the two of us, all the unsaid stuff made more unbearable by the artificial cold.

"Now that I have a captive audience," she says, setting us on cruise control as the road opens up, "who did you sneak out with last night?"

Last night.

You'd think someone who's seen you half naked would be a little more enthusiastic about picking you up on time. Not Finn Gallo. From the driver's seat of his old silver 4Runner, Finn crushed a spent butt into the ashtray and turned down the radio, blowing out a plume of blue smoke from between his lips. He didn't say anything, like, "Thanks for waiting in the dark for me," or "I'm sorry I put your life in danger with my lateness," or "Allow me to apologize with this exquisite lavender rose bouquet." He just pulled me to his mouth with one hand cool and firm on the back of my neck and somehow made up for everything bad he'd ever done in his whole entire life.