Brother/Sister (8 page)

She wouldn’t say one word about what had happened. It’s not like I couldn’t figure it out. I said to her, “I could give two shits if he was drunk. So what? That doesn’t excuse him.” I was speeding. Flooring it. “Did he touch you?” I said. “He must have touched you. Is that it, Ash? Did he try to hurt you? Like, physically? Try to rip off your skirt?”

So, yeah, I was completely out of control. But wouldn’t you be? I mean . . .

We must have been going close to eighty by then. Yanking a left turn, I spun us around so quick that the Explorer went up on two wheels, almost toppled over. We went up on the median, then bounced back down. I looked up and next thing I knew, we were barreling right toward the light post. I slammed on the brakes and we screeched to a halt, I swear, not even an inch from hitting the damn thing.

We sat there for a second.

“It’s not like he raped me,” Asheley said quietly. “It’s stupid. He was kissing some skanky girl. I shouldn’t even care.”

“But you still do care.”

“Well, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess, maybe. But”—I took her hand—“you shouldn’t. You’re way too good for him,” I said.

“You think so?” she said.

“Definitely.”

A whisper of a smile invaded her face, like she wasn’t sure if it was okay to feel a little better about herself.

Holding my fist up for her to tap, I said, “Wonder Twin powers!”

“Unite!” she said.

We bumped fists.

The light had gone from green to red to green again.

“So, home?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m waiting for the light.” As it turned yellow, I began a countdown. “Five, four, three, two, one.” It went red, and I gunned it and we raced across the intersection.

That made her laugh.

The rest of the way home, I felt so at peace, such a sense of accomplishment. I’d never experienced a peace like that before. Like I could handle anything. Me and Ash. It was . . . I can’t even explain it.

After that, things were
pretty okay for a while. I mean, I was still sad about how things had ended up with Craig, but I was able to contain it. I didn’t do anything stupid or dramatic. I didn’t call him or text him or anything. I just sort of let it ride and kept to myself.

I was living my life. Going to Milky Moo’s, the ice cream shop on our one main shopping street where I’d gotten a summer job. Coming home. Watching TV with Will, or sometimes just watching him play
Halo
. On days when I wasn’t working, I’d set myself up on a beach chair in the backyard and sunbathe all day, listening to my iPod and reading.

It was nice. Simple. I’d make small talk with Mrs. Stein, who owned the store, when she stopped by to make sure everything was okay. I’d smile and pretend to be content, happy, whenever someone from school popped in for a cone. I’d walk back and forth from home—we weren’t that far really, maybe a mile or so—and try to convince myself I didn’t need more than this.

And then, this one evening—it must have been about a week after Becca’s party—I was closing out Milky Moo’s, shutting down the soft-serve machines and counting the money in the register and soaking the scoopers and everything, and it all sort of hit me at once, so forcefully that I got dizzy and had to sit down for a minute. How normal things were. Even though Mom was locked up in Hope Hill and Keith was out there with her, staying at a Motel 8 down the road so he could check in on her every day, things were normal.

Will and I were cooking dinner every night—easy stuff like pasta from the jar and Hot Pockets and such, but still—trying not to spend more than the budget Keith and Mom had provided us with. We’d even been doing chores, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, all that sort of thing.

Like I said, normal. And the thing that confused me, the thing that got me so discombobulated that I had to sit down to stop myself from fainting, was that it seemed like I hadn’t known what normal was until then. Normal was the thing that was weird to me, if that makes sense. And I distinctly remember thinking, “So this is what life would have been like if Mom hadn’t driven Dad away like she did.”

That was the day we decided to have our party.

When I got home from work, Will was in the kitchen, hunkered over the counter, already making dinner.

“Hi, honey,” I called out to him. “I’m home.” We’d started having fun like that. It was like playing house.

“Masheley potatoes!” he said with a grin. He hadn’t called me that in years.

“Whatcha cooking?” I asked, heading into the kitchen area. “Smells spicy.”

He’d covered every inch of counter space with piles of ingredients. Sour cream, grated cheese, tortillas, salsa. He’d opened a can of beans and chopped up some lettuce and tomatoes. He was even cooking up some ground beef to throw in there.

“Tacos?” I said. “Burritos?”

“Mexican surprise,” he said, picking a dish towel off the counter and flicking it at me. “Don’t you worry about it.” Then he pulled a blender full of lime slush out of the freezer. “Here. Have a margarita and stop distracting the chef.”

He poured a drink for me, and placing a hand on each of my shoulders, marched me into the living room and plopped me onto the couch.

“Your job is to sit here and watch TV. Drink your margarita. Do nothing for a while. You’ve been working all day. I’ve been hanging out playing
Halo
. I’ll set up a TV tray and serve you when it’s ready.”

“Well, okay. If you’re demanding it.”

While I watched Colbert on the DVR, I rotated my arm trying to keep it loose. That ice cream in the freezer box is hard as a rock and eight hours of sculpting it into balls tears you up. My shoulder was killing me, which was weird because I would have thought playing softball would build up those muscles. I guess not. Different muscles.

It was nice, having a drink and letting Will wait on me. I was thinking I could get used to this.

Will put the plate in front of me—which was great, by the way: a gargantuan, overstuffed burrito, with sour cream and guacamole on top and everything.

Oh, and Keith showed up too, that night. Will and I shot each other a look.

He walked right in, left the front door open and everything and headed straight for the fridge, almost like it was his house, which it isn’t. He might hang around all the time when Mom’s here, but he actually lives in a beat-up old houseboat down at the docks.

“Keith, come on in. Make yourself at home,” Will said. I don’t think Keith got the sarcasm because he just stroked his braid and gazed at Will through his giant glasses. Sort of lurking.

“Your mom sent me to get some CDs for her,” he said, eventually. “And her cowboy boots, she wants those too.” But he didn’t make a move, just kept standing there. I think maybe he was stoned. That was the trade off. He didn’t drink anymore, but he still let himself smoke pot because, he said, pot was “healthful.”

“You guys doing okay?” he said, finally.

“Yeah, uh-huh, fine,” I said. Enough nodding and smiling and you could usually get him to wander off after a while. Really, Keith was kind of like a dimwitted old dog sometimes. He’d sniff at you, get confused, and go on his way.

“You’re cooking,” he said. “Partaking of the bounty of the earth.”

“Something like that, yeah,” said Will. He was getting annoyed. I could tell. His leg was bouncing like it does when he gets anxious.

Keith nosed around the kitchen, poking and sniffing at the things Will had left out. “A lot of cans,” he said. “Maybe you’re not so much partaking of the bounty of the earth. Looks more like the bounty of the corporation.”

“It’s food,” Will said. “Food is food.”

“But all food’s not created equal. You’re cooking though, that’s step one. You’re breaking the frozen food, TV dinner cycle. But you’ve got that whole garden I planted out back there. Fresh basil and cilantro and heirloom tomatoes. Next time I pop by I’ll give you some tips.”

Will, over-sensitive as always, was stung by this. He started pounding out a rhythm on his knee. His focus turned inward. He’d spent hours making this special meal for me, and even if it was just Keith making fun of it, the criticism was enough to flick a speck of self-doubt into his feeling of accomplishment.

I took a huge bite and smacked my lips and said, “I don’t care if it’s not organic from our personal garden. It’s still really good. What matters is the love you put into it.”

I stuck my tongue out at Will and he cracked a smile.

“Well, then I better try it,” said Keith. He started opening cabinets in search of a plate.

“No way, man. No fucking way.” Will leapt up and raced to the kitchen to protect his creation. “You’re going to have to go get takeout from the macrobiotic shop downtown.”

“Yeah,” I called, through a mouthful of burrito. “Go get some tofu. This processed crap will kill you.”

“What are you doing here anyway, Keith? You’re obviously not here to get Mom’s cowboy boots. I visited her last time she was in Hope Hill. They don’t allow shoes there. They make you walk around barefoot. Shouldn’t you be reading girlie mags on your houseboat or something?”

This got a smirk out of Keith. “I figured you might need a responsible adult to stop by every once in a while, make sure you’re still breathing and all that,” he said.

“A responsible adult? Let me know if you find one of them. I’d like to meet him.”

I couldn’t help it: I cracked up when Will said this.

Keith raised his hands above his head like we’d caught him stealing and started backing up toward the door. “No worries, dudes,” he said. “I’m around if you need me, cool?”

“Yeah, Keith. Cool,” Will said.

“Till then, I’ll catch you on the flip side.”

A loose-limbed wave, and he was off.

Will flopped down on the couch next to me. “Jesus!” he said.

“Yeah, but you were amazing.” I hit him playfully in the arm. “My protector.”

I think this made him blush. Anyway, he wouldn’t let me see his face; he sort of held it up and away from me for a while.

So, then we finished dinner and zapped on the tube and gorged ourselves on three, was it? Four? Maybe five hours of
Criminal Minds
. I curled up on the couch and put my head in his lap. Sometimes one of us would say something and we’d talk for a second then fade back into the show. It was an odd experience. Just sort of being, in that totally normal way that wasn’t actually normal at all.

“I feel like a person, in this weird way,” I said to him after it got late and it seemed like we’d be shuffling off to bed soon.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like a grown-up or something. Like a person with a life.”

Which is when it occurred to me: let’s have a dinner party. Isn’t that the sort of thing grown-ups do?

The idea made Will nervous. I could feel his muscles tensing up. But he wasn’t saying no.

“Really?” he said. “Didn’t you get enough of the Joiners last week?”

“I’m not talking about a rager. Just a dinner party. And you could cook and we could drink red wine and talk about fine art and current events,” I said.

“Who would we invite?”

“I don’t know. Definitely not Craig. We’d only invite people who deserve to come. Maybe four or five people? We’ll think about it and make a list. Naomi. That’s one.”

“Naomi? Really?”

“What’s wrong with Naomi?”

“She’s so proud of herself all the time.”

“She’s cooler than you think. Also”—I wasn’t sure if I should mention this, but I figured why not, it might get him a little more jazzed about the idea—“I’m pretty sure she’s got a crush on you. She definitely wants to hook up with you.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess we could try it.”

“And Naomi?” I said.

He cracked a half-smirk. “Do
you
think I should like Naomi?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

I don’t know what else I can tell you. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

No, I didn’t invite anybody.
Who would I have asked? The golf team? They’re a bunch of douche bags. And who else was there? Other kids from school? I hated those people. They might have forgotten all the times they’d smashed my head into my locker and thrown the dodge ball at my nuts during gym class and all that crap they used to do to me, but I hadn’t.

You know, one time, I was in chemistry class. This was, like, sophomore year, and we were making some sort of dangerous concoction. You mixed the chemicals and they went from green to purple and then the beaker filled up with smoke. The kind of thing that you had to wear your goggles and rubber gloves to do because if it spilled on you, it might burn through your hands. And this prick, Andy Berman—a real straitlaced kid, like, all As and cardigans and hair that looked like it had been parted with a shovel—Andy Berman, and his lab partner Jen Letts—who got teased herself all the time because people thought her last name made her a whore somehow—the two of them started whispering and snickering to each other and Andy says loud enough for the whole class to hear, “Hey, I bet this stuff is strong enough to clear up Baird’s zits!” Har, har. Everybody gets a big kick out of that one. So, fine, I’d been hearing crap like that forever. Who cares. Not me. I did care, though, when Mr. Lewison stepped out of the room and they all started chasing me around with it, like, pinning me down and holding their beakers over my face so that the only thing stopping it from burning my skin off was the rubber stopper. Fuck yeah, I minded that.

So, no. I had no interest in inviting anybody. Thanks, no. I don’t think so.

But Asheley wanted to have some people over, so I said, “Okay. If it makes you happy, we’ll have some people over.”

She had said there’d be five of them. Girls from the softball team. I can’t remember who. Naomi and a few of the others. They were friends of Asheley’s, that’s all that mattered.