The Big Apple Effect Read online

  “Stop,” Anna said again. “Maddie, I have had enough.”

  “Huh?” I said. What was Anna talking about?

  “Your mom hasn’t let you do anything you wanted to do?” Anna laughed. It was a hard, mocking laugh. “Maddie, today was glorious. Glorious. Other than puking, of course. I finally got to have fun. We went to the zoo. We did touristy things. All the other days, I’ve been dragged around doing things from your list of the zillion things you wanted do.” Her eyes were wild. Anna didn’t usually lose her cool.

  “I thought you wanted to do those things,” I said.

  “I was trying to be nice! It was your birthday, and then it was your big art show. I was happy for you, really I was! But I saved up for this trip too. It’s my trip as much as it is yours,” she said.

  “You went to see The Phantom of the Opera,” I said, pointing an accusing finger at her.

  “Who cares about The Phantom of the Opera,” she said. “That was three out of seventy-two hours of boredom and shopping torture.”

  Thomas was still looking intently out the window, avoiding the fight, of course.

  “You’ve spent so much time ranting to me,” Anna went on, “about how your mom has dragged you on summer adventures where she doesn’t care what you want to do and only does what she wants to do.”

  “Yeah, like now,” I said.

  “I hate to say it, but…” Anna said.

  “But what?” I said. Anna didn’t respond. She looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

  Boom. I got it.

  I wanted to run outside. I wanted to escape the room, the building, this ruined trip. But I couldn’t. My mom was out there.

  So I went to my usual hiding place. The bathroom.

  I stayed there for I don’t know how long. I hadn’t brought my phone in with me. I didn’t know what time it was. I hummed. I looked up at the cracks in the ceiling. No one came to check on me. No one came at all.

  At first, I wasn’t ready to think about what Anna said. But after a while, her words started to ring around in my head.

  I hated to admit it, but thinking back over the past few days, I could see what Anna was saying. I had dragged her all around the city for three whole days.

  In my efforts to get away from my mom that summer, to do something totally different, I’d become exactly like my mom.

  The rage that I’d felt toward my mom, I now felt toward myself.

  I had to sit with that a while.

  When I was ready, I leapt off the closed toilet lid. My butt was numb from sitting there so long.

  With a flourish, I opened the door to Thomas’s apartment. It was dark. I had hoped to do a big, dramatic, soul-baring speech, but everyone was asleep. My mom was on the floor. Surprisingly, she wasn’t snoring.

  “Maddie,” Anna said in a sleepy voice. “You were gone for like two hours.”

  No wonder my butt hurt so much.

  I knelt down next to Anna.

  “Anna,” I whispered. She raised her head. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I did make this trip all about me.”

  Hot tears were brimming out of my eyes, but Anna wouldn’t be able to see them in the dark.

  “You’re not an idiot,” she said after a moment. “And stop crying.” She patted my hair. On the floor, my mom rustled around.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” I tried to sob as quietly as possible. I didn’t want my mom to hear.

  “I accept your apology,” Anna said. “It’s okay. I’m sorry that I overreacted tonight.”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “I deserved it.”

  I crawled over Anna to my side of the futon. I fell asleep, more exhausted than I’d been in years.

  We slept in the next morning. We all needed it.

  I was the first one to wake up. It was a bright, blue-sky day.

  I blinked and looked around. There was a blank spot on the floor where my mom had been in her sleeping bag. I sat up.

  On the table there was a note written on a coffee filter.

  Took an earlier flight home. Have a date with the Big Apple.

  Love, Mom

  Tucked inside the coffee filter was one hundred dollars. I gasped. Then I woke up Anna and Thomas, of course.

  Thomas said it was the classy thing for my mom to do. Anna couldn’t believe it. I felt a little guilty about my mom leaving early, but not really. I kept wondering, though, had she heard me the night before?

  We decided to hang out in the apartment for a bit before heading out.

  I checked my email on my phone. When I saw my inbox, I felt like my eyes were boing-ing out of my head. There was an email from Timber.

  “Timber!” I shrieked to Anna and Thomas. “He sent me an email!”

  To: Madison Turner

 

  From: Timber Bergville

 

  Hi Maddie,

  I was sad that I missed saying goodbye to you last night. Carl from Canvas gave me your email. I said I had to contact you for business reasons, which is partly true. My mom wants to buy your portrait to hang in her library. It’s her favorite one.

  I’m in Cape Cod for the weekend, but my mom has an exhibit coming to the Vancouver Art Gallery in October. I hope you can show me your city then. If you want to.

  Ciao,

  Timber

  Wow. Wow. That was all I could think for about three straight minutes. Had I just rubbed a magical genie lamp? Were all my wishes coming true?

  Had a boy as hot as Timber actually gone to the trouble of getting my email?

  Yes, yes he had.

  Of course, I read the email out to Thomas and Anna. I then read it again to myself, probably two dozen times.

  “He sounds rich,” Anna said. “And his mom wants to buy your art!”

  I blushed. I felt like I was betraying Thomas, but that was ridiculous. He had a girlfriend he was madly in love with.

  “We have to celebrate,” Thomas said. “The world’s our oyster.” He pointed to my notebook on the table.

  “So,” Thomas continued, his voice a little weak. “We can do 47.2 things today, right?”

  I opened the garbage can and thwacked my notebook into it. It closed with a clang. Anna and Thomas looked at me and then looked at each other.

  “Forget it,” I said. “What do you guys want to do?”

  “Quite honestly,” Thomas said. “I could go for a Big Mac right now.”

  Anna mmmmm-ed. “I think some fries are calling my name.”

  “Two cheeseburgers, please,” I said, smiling.

  Arm in arm, we skipped out the door and into the light of the Big Apple.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A huge thank-you to my wonderful editor, Melanie Jeffs. This is the third book we’ve worked on together, and I am forever appreciative of her thoughtful edits. Massive gratitude and smooches to my husband, Joshua, my faithful first reader and sounding board, and to my fabulous writing group, the Inkslingers. Much thanks, as always, to my family.

  The Big Apple Effect is Christy Goerzen’s second novel featuring Maddie and her crazy mom. In the first novel, Farmed Out, the two wreak havoc at Anna’s family’s farm. Christy lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband and two children.