Only the Pretty Lies Read online

  PRAISE FOR REBEKAH CRANE

  Postcards for a Songbird

  “An earnest exploration of the demise of a family, this book captures the sense of disconnect a teen can feel when buffeted by changing winds . . . The characters are well-developed, complex, and intriguing. A finely crafted story of the healing that can happen when family secrets rise to the surface.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “An enjoyable read. Wren’s vulnerability and decision to no longer play it safe will engage readers.”

  —School Library Journal

  The Infinite Pieces of Us

  A Seventeen Best YA Book of 2018

  “Crane has created an organic and dynamic friendship group. Esther’s first-person narration, including her framing of existential questions as ‘Complex Math Problems,’ is honest and endearing. A compelling narrative about the power of friendship, faith, self-acceptance, and forgiveness.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Crane’s latest is a breezy, voice-driven, and emotional read with a well-rounded cast of characters that walk that fine line between quirky and true to life . . . The novel stands out for its depiction of the American Southwest . . . Hand to fans of Jandy Nelson and Estelle Laure.”

  —Booklist

  “[This] journey of self-discovery and new beginnings will resonate with readers seeking answers to life’s big questions.”

  —School Library Journal

  “The Infinite Pieces of Us tells a story of judgement, family, trust, identity, and new beginnings . . . a fresh take on teenage pregnancy . . . Crane creates relatable, diverse characters with varying socioeconomic backgrounds and sexualities that remind readers of the importance of getting to know people beyond the surface presentation.”

  —VOYA

  The Upside of Falling Down

  “[An] appealing love story that provides romantics with many swoon-worthy moments.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Written with [an] unstoppable mix of sharp humor, detailed characters, and all-around charm, this story delivers a fresh and enticing take on first love—and one that will leave readers swooning.”

  —Jessica Park, author of 180 Seconds and Flat-Out Love

  “The Upside of Falling Down is a romantic new-adult celebration of all of the wild and amazing possibilities that open up when perfect plans go awry.”

  —Foreword Magazine

  “Using the device of Clementine’s amnesia, Crane explores themes of freedom and self-determination . . . Readers will respond to [Clementine’s] testing of new waters. A light exploration of existential themes.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “This quickly paced work will be enjoyed by teens interested in independence, love, self-discovery, and drama.”

  —School Library Journal

  “First love, starting over, finding herself—the story is hopeful and romantic.”

  —Denver Life

  The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland

  One of Bustle’s Eight Best YA Books of December 2016

  “Now that the title has captured our attention, I have even better news: No, this book isn’t a history lesson about a president. Much more wonderfully, it centers on teenager Zander Osborne, who meets a boy named Grover Cleveland at a camp for at-risk youth. Together, the two and other kids who face bipolar disorder, anorexia, pathological lying, schizophrenia, and other obstacles use their group therapy sessions to break down and build themselves back up. And as Zander gets closer to Grover, she wonders if happiness is actually a possibility for her after all.”

  —Bustle

  “The true beauty of Crane’s book lies in the way she handles the ugly, painful details of real life, showing the glimmering humanity beneath the façades of even her most troubled characters . . . Crane shows, with enormous heart and wisdom, how even the unlikeliest of friendships can give us the strength we need to keep on fighting.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  ALSO BY REBEKAH CRANE

  Postcards for a Songbird

  The Infinite Pieces of Us

  The Upside of Falling Down

  The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland

  Aspen

  Playing Nice

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Rebekah Crane

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542019644 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1542019648 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542019668 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542019664 (paperback)

  Cover design by Adil Dara

  Cover illustration by Leah Goren

  First edition

  For Jason, who trusted me with this story.

  And for Coco, who inspired it.

  CONTENTS

  1 HOME

  2 LET IT BE

  3 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

  4 THE PRETTY LIES

  5 THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM

  6 AM I MISSING SOMETHING?

  7 AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY

  8 OUR SONG

  9 THE F-WORD

  10 HARMLESS

  11 THE KISS

  12 DEATH BY A MILLION PINPRICKS

  13 SHE’S NOT A FARM ANIMAL

  14 ALMOST

  15 A LOVE SONG

  16 ATTENTION, ATTENTION

  17 IT’S A VERB

  18 BACKMASKING

  19 HOT CHOCOLATE AND MY OLD MAN

  20 R-E-S-P-E-C-T

  21 UNSAFE

  22 YOU DON’T KNOW ME

  23 TAKE IT SLOW

  24 MAYBE

  25 I DON’T TRUST YOU

  26 TRY AND TRY AGAIN

  27 INTO THE DARKNESS

  28 KEROUAC AND CARHENGE

  29 WHEN THINGS GET INTERESTING

  30 WINNERS AND LOSERS

  31 A MEETING COMES TO ORDER

  32 PAID IN FULL

  33 THIS TOWN IS CRAZY

  34 TIME’S UP

  35 ROOM FOR TWO

  36 A FRESH COAT OF PAINT

  37 LOVE HAS LIMBS

  38 HOPE ISN’T THE ANSWER

  39 HOME SWEET HOME

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  HOME

  When my grandmother died, she left me a legacy. I never knew her, which has only increased her legendary status. A hippie, my mom calls her. A Woodstock-attending, protest-marching, Nixon-hating feminist who bucked the patriarchy and knew that the only way to live was raw and free. A woman who stood for something.

  It’s much easier to idolize the dead. The living constantly fail us. But in death, we remember a person as near perfect. Flaws are forgotten until one day, you’re listening to Cat Stevens’s “Peace Train,” imagining a woman in bell-bottoms with flowers in her hair hanging out the side of a Volkswagen van with a “Make Love, Not War” bumper sticker, on her way out west, in search of herself. You’re not sure if it’s an image from a movie you once saw or a picture from an old photo album somewhere in your house. But does it even matter? All you know is that you like her.

  My grandma’s
legacy is all around me—the house I live in, the café where I work, the crates of vinyl stacked in my room, filled with records alphabetized by band name, from America to ZZ Top.

  Grandma is dead, but I’ve never known a time without her. She’s always been here, like a birthmark.

  “Use the records carefully,” my mother, Rayne, said to me when I was younger.

  Rayne would sit me down on the bed, slide a record out of its sleeve, and place it on the turntable gently. The collection is vinyl from the sixties and seventies, when rock stars weren’t flashy, and jean shirts with bell-bottoms were the height of fashion. When all a person needed for the perfect album cover was a beat-up old truck in the middle of a field, or a couch sitting on the lawn in front of some abandoned house, to make the perfect statement. Slowly my mother would lower the needle. “If you scratch the record, it’ll skip, and then it’s ruined. Always be gentle, Amoris.”

  To Rayne, they weren’t just records. They were the soundtrack of her memories. Of her life with a mother she could no longer see in the flesh. We’d sit on my bed, and she’d tell me story after story. How her mom hitchhiked from Michigan to Florida for spring break one year when she was in college. How she made her own clothes and refused to wear a bra. How she smoked weed out of her father’s tobacco pipe and inadvertently helped his glaucoma. How she traveled all over the United States, living out of a van, in search of “home”—a place where the cosmic energy was just right, the scenery was awe inspiring, and the human connection was potent. That’s how she found Alder Creek.

  “She may have had a short life, but my mom knew what was important, and she didn’t stop until she found it,” Rayne told me, more than once.

  Once Grandma found her utopia, she borrowed all the money her parents could afford and opened the very first coffee shop in Alder Creek. I work in that café now, though Rayne sold the business to a woman named Marnie after her mom died. Rayne isn’t one for baking scones and making lattes. She knew Grandma would want the café passed on to the right hands, and Rayne’s hands were built for other purposes.

  Rayne is well known around our town for working magic. She is a bodyworker, a healer, a true kind of witch, before men took control of the word and made it ugly. A witch with long brown hair streaked with gray, and strong pale hands, and eyes the color of twilight, a mix of dark blue and brown. Rayne has an energy about her—a knowing that some people are just born with. People want to be around her, in her presence, because her energy simply makes them feel better. That’s why I’ve never minded when she holds me captive in my room, playing vinyl and telling me stories. I watch her and imagine her as a child, sitting with her mom as she passed along her wisdom. If my grandma created Rayne, I would let Rayne mold me. Give her clay, and she’ll sculpt something beautiful with her magical hands. Plus, I love the music.

  I was five years old when my parents gave me my first guitar. My dad, Christopher Westmore, found it at a garage sale. It was small, perfect for a child. He placed it in my hands and said, “I got it for free ’cause it’s so beat up. But I think there’s still life in it. See if you can find it, Amoris.”

  I had that guitar tuned, shined, and singing within days. I taught myself how to play listening to the Beatles, Nina Simone, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan. With each note and each chord, I felt like I was learning the soundtrack of my life, becoming who I was meant to be.

  When I turned twelve, Chris bought me a Martin D-28. “An upgrade,” he called it, though the guitar was used, the wood worn down in places where players had plucked and strummed. By then, I could play, to some degree, nearly every album of my grandma’s—within reason, I’m no Jimi Hendrix or B. B. King.

  “Maybe it’s time you start writing your own music,” Chris offered.

  Easy for him to say, he’s an artist. He creates for a living. Chris surrounds himself with chaos and wild ideas. He doesn’t mind a mess, which his art studio confirms. Somehow he sifts through it all until a concrete painting emerges. But the idea of writing music petrified me. Whatever song I wrote, whatever notes and chords and riffs I put together, could never equal the genius of the albums I’d grown to love, and to play. My own ideas and thoughts were incoherent most days, so far from brilliant they verged on ridiculous. Embarrassing, really. No, it was much easier to play someone else’s genius. There’s beauty in imitation, and every once in a while, a cover song can even rival the original.

  That was my life—a cover song. It still is. But I’m OK with that. Better than OK. I prefer it. Aren’t we all cover songs, in a way? I was sculpted from Rayne, who was sculpted from her mom. Breaking from that tradition sounds lonely. Imitation may lack in creative genius, but it’s a lot more inclusive. And let’s be honest, I’m no John Lennon. Who would want to be? Murdered at forty, shot by a lunatic? I’ll take the safety of another person’s genius over the danger of creating something my own. Plus, I like my life as it is. It’s a good life. It would take a lot of convincing to give that up for the uncertainty of a pencil in my hand and a blank piece of paper.

  Alder Creek is busy today. Cars with out-of-state license plates, mostly from Texas and California, line the streets of our quaint downtown. People are in a hurry to grab the last Zen of the summer in our mountain oasis. But despite the crowd, a week’s worth of my tension eases as we approach the two gray-and-white duplexes of the only home I’ve ever known. Its overgrown garden, creaky screen door, chipped paint, and basketball hoop with a net hanging on by a thread—it might not sound idyllic, but trust me, it is. I can practically smell the palo santo burning in Rayne’s bedroom, cleansing the air of any bad energy that might have seeped in through the cracks. My trip to New York was only a week long, but I’m desperate to get out of this car and run up to my bedroom, or sit under twinkle lights in the Zen fairy garden in the backyard.

  My grandmother nicknamed our house Shangri-La when she bought it. Back in 1975, Alder Creek wasn’t much of a tourist destination, more a hideaway from traditional society—a place where counterculture thrived.

  Shangri-La comes into view. Mr. and Mrs. Hillsborough pull into the driveway, and I thank them for taking me along on their trip. For buying my plane ticket. For the Manhattan dinners and lunches and sightseeing that must have cost them a small fortune. All so I could properly say goodbye to my boyfriend, Zach, their son, who’s now officially a freshman at Columbia University.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Mr. Hillsborough says as he brings the car to a stop.

  “I won’t.”

  Mrs. Hillsborough reaches back and places her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you,” she says, catching me off guard.

  “For what?”

  “For being so good to our Zach. He cares about you a lot.”

  I smile, but I hate to admit that it feels forced. I blame fatigue brought on by unfamiliar travel. “He makes it easy to be good.”

  At that, I scoot out of the back seat. I don’t want to be too hasty, but I’m exhausted, and the smell of Rayne’s pecan pie is wafting out of the kitchen window, making my mouth water and my heart melt. It’s her mom’s recipe. Rayne may not be a natural baker, but she can make a mean pecan pie. It must be a homecoming surprise. I didn’t think I could love my mom any more, but at this moment, I do.

  Zach’s mom rolls down the window of their Volvo. “Think about Thanksgiving, Amoris. I know Zach will be anxious to see you. And don’t be put off by the expense. Our treat.” She winks at me, her light sandy-brown hair the same color as her son’s. I can’t think about Thanksgiving. School hasn’t even started. It’s eighty degrees and the leaves on the trees are still green. I give the Hillsboroughs a nod and a smile, and they finally pull away.

  After a busy week in New York City, followed by a long flight home, I’ve never been happier to see Shangri-La. The light is on in my dad’s art studio next door, the hum of music vibrating out the open windows. After her mom died, Rayne built a matching house right next to Shangri-La, with an art studio for Chris on the first floor and
a rental apartment on the second. I contemplate knocking on the studio door, but the pecan pie is too tempting. My dad isn’t very social when he’s deep in his art anyway. That’s why Rayne built the second house, that and the income they get from the apartment. I can see Chris later, when the weed has worn off.

  When I walk in the door of Shangri-La, Rayne stands at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. Her long salt-and-pepper hair is pulled into a loose braid down her back. I’ve always envied her straight, manageable hair. The less I touch my curly hair, the better.

  My mom turns, slinging the dish towel over her shoulder.

  “So. Did you see the Statue of Liberty?” she asks.

  “Check.”

  “Go to the top of the Empire State Building?”

  “Check.”

  “The Met?”

  “They had a Matisse exhibit that was amazing. I brought Dad a pamphlet.”

  “He’ll be jealous.” I can tell she wants to ask me about the most important part of the trip, but she pauses, leaning back on the sink. “Did you . . .”

  “Brought a daisy and everything. Just like you said. Laid it right on the ground next to the memorial. Zach took a picture on my phone.” I show Rayne, and her eyes fill with tears.

  “Grandma would have loved that.”

  My usually lenient, carefree mom had one very specific condition when she agreed to let me accompany my longtime boyfriend and his family on a trip to New York City. I had to visit Strawberry Fields, Central Park’s circular memorial to John Lennon, and put a daisy right next to the word IMAGINE in the center.

  Rayne hugs me, her familiar earthy scent mixing with the smell of pecan pie. I feel overwhelming relief at being home.

  “Do you want to move to New York City now?” she asks.

  “Never,” I say.

  “Never say never,” Rayne chides.

  “I think it’s safe to say never in this case. It’s a cool city, but it’s not for me. Every day seems to be garbage day there.”

  “And how is Zach?”

  “Nervous, mostly.”

  “That’s to be expected,” Rayne says. “And how are you?”

  “Exhausted.”