The End of FUN (31 page)

It was true. Katie had a lot of crap. It was going to take
hours
. The working conditions weren't great. They'd had the place sealed, and it was stifling hot in there and smelled like burnt rubber. Our progress was slow. Every time I tried to do something I just made more work for Katie. Like, I'd fold a sweatshirt and catch her five minutes later unfolding and refolding it, or I'd fill a bin with bathroom supplies and she'd dump it out and replace it with socks.

Mostly I just sat and sweated and watched her sort through her stuff, while a stunningly inefficient box fan whirred on HIGH in the window. The sound was like an airplane engine, but the breeze was just the faintest whisper. I stuck my fingers through the dusty grill and let the plastic blades whap at the tips.

As I watched Katie pack, a question began to worm through my mind.
Why?
Why just friends? Why not more? The spark was there. I'd
felt
it. The light in the monkey. So she was a little older, so I was technically a minor—what did it matter in the face of the spark? I changed my mood to
LOVESTRUCK
, but of course she couldn't see it.

As for Katie's mood, it was fairly breezy. She flitted from pile to pile, practicing her lines as she packed. It was confusing. I could tell she liked me, she really kind of did, but OTOH she acted like we were just two good friends hanging out in a sweaty apartment.

At some point I had the bright idea that she could store it all at my grandpa's place—anything to buy a little more time—and at first she was hesitant, but then she agreed, so we drove the boxes out there and stacked them in the other bedroom. It was almost dark by the time we were done. I walked her to her truck.

She thanked me and gave me a little hug, and there was that spark again, and I couldn't keep it in anymore.

“Katie. Can we talk?”

She looked at me in the twilight, and I could tell she knew exactly what I was going to say, even if
I
didn't know exactly—something about the spark and all that—and I watched the recognition flash across her face like lightning, and I watched her face change, and when she answered me, it was in her Meg voice. “
The caretaker had gone home. So he had to wait until the morning before he could get out. They were very grateful.
Pause.
And then they all wanted to give him a tip. And so he took the tip. And then he got a fast train and he came down here.
”

“No, but seriously.”

“Wrong line. You say:
Really?
And I say,
Oh, yes. Straight down.
Pause.
I wish he could have played tonight
.”

“I'm done playing. Can we just talk?”

“We
are
talking. You say,
Why tonight?
And I say,
It's his birthday today
. And you say,
His birthday?
And I say,
Yes. Today. But I wasn't going to tell him until
—HEY! OW!”

She looked up at the wig dangling above her head. I'd scalped her.

“That was fastened to my
hair
, Aaron!” The Meg voice was gone.

YAY! for the Meg wig, manufactured by PrettyJane
®
Charm Accessories, with durable synthetic weave and adjustable comfort hooks. Katie grabbed for the wig, and I flung it into the brush.

Two blue eyes glared at me. “You go pick that up.”

So I did. I handed her the wig, and I said, “Katie.”

And she said, “What.”

And I took a breath and said, “I like you and…I think maybe you like me, too.”

Katie blinked. “Oh, Aaron. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“It's the truth.”

“No, it's—the truth is complicated. It's the Space Amazon. Don't you get that?” She tried to smile. “Come on, you're seventeen. You've got, you know, a little growing up to do.”

“Sure. Everyone does.”

She closed her eyes and sighed again. “Can't we just be
friends
? What's so hard about that? Or like sister and brother.”

“I've already got a sister.”

“Then a friendly younger aunt.”

And I was like, “Give me a chance. I'm gonna be eighteen pretty soon. A legal adult. Old enough to buy cigarettes. Old enough to go die facedown in a ditch on the field of war or whatever. So why not old enough to be with you?”

“Aaron—
please
.”

“Look inside your heart. At least just
think
about it.” It was some pretty cheesy shit to say,
Look inside your heart
, but I meant it. I really did. I meant it so much, I couldn't shut up about it. “It's like, there's a light in the monkey. That's what they say. There's a light! Just give it some thought, OK? When you're in Tahoe. Take as much time as you want. Meanwhile, I'll be here. Just growing up more and more.”

“Ugh!” she said. “Why do you have to—”

“Just look in your heart, Katie. That's all I ask!”

The next day I changed my mood from
LOVESTRUCK
to
LOVESICK
and returned to the dig, not hoping to find anything, just to distract myself from the feelings I was feeling. The Russian olive was shiny after the rain. The water had washed away some of the dirt, and I saw something gleaming in the sun. Not a fork, not a spoon—something else. Something made of glass. A bottle.

And I was like,
Yes! A message!

But no—it was just a bottle with some dark liquid it. And as I lifted it out of the earth I knew then that the old man was crazy, he just was, and everything up to this point had just been a colossal waste of time. Light in the monkey, my ass. I unscrewed the cap and gave it a sniff. Some kind of booze. Dead man's liquor.

Homie
™
popped up.

“Guess what?” she said. “Isaac surprised me—he came to town a week early!”

“Who?”

“My b—” She stopped herself. “My friend from New York. He got in last night. We're going tubing and we need a fourth. Want to come?”

“When?”

“Right now. We're on the way.” I heard a muffled sound, like she was covering the phone, then my sister hissed at me: “
Be nice to him, OK, Aaron?
”

Sure. Why not? Anything was better than digging.

Five minutes later, her CR-V pulled into the drive. It was just the two of them. Evie and her new special friend.

“Aaron, this is Isaac. Isaac, this is my little brother.”

The guy smiled and thrust out his hand. “Wow! Nice place! I'm really thrilled to go tube with you today!”

He was a tall guy with dark hair, and he had on short khaki shorts and a safari shirt, plus one of those weird baseball caps with the flap in back to keep the sun off your neck. Also, he was having FUN
®
. Username: ec0g33k. YAY! for Isaac. Coming from New York, I'd expected more of a, I don't know, sophisticated hipster kind of dude, but this guy was pretty much a big dork. I could see why my sister liked him.

“Where's Sam?” I asked.

“Sam has work. We're meeting Shiloh out by the river.”

I changed into my swimsuit, grabbed the bottle of dead man's liquor, threw it in a bag with a towel, and piled into the backseat.

Isaac was driving, and as we turned down the road, he caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Hey, Aaron, you eat any breakfast yet? You hungry?” He held out his hand. “Purple Jolly Rancher. Don't worry—it's sugarless.”

Now, when someone says
hungry
—I'm never really
hungry
for candy. Especially not for breakfast. Especially not sugarless Jolly Ranchers
™
.

“No, thanks.”

“Sure?” After a moment he withdrew his hand, unwrapped the Rancher, and popped it in his mouth. I could hear it clicking against his teeth as he drove down the road. “Breakfast of champions.”

Evie craned around. She was wearing this big, goofy smile. “Yeah, Isaac's got a bit of a sweet tooth.”

She said it the same way you might say:
Yeah, Isaac likes to skydive
. Or:
Yeah, Isaac is an MMA fighter
.

“Aaron,” he said. “I have question. Earlier, when I said,
‘I'm thrilled to go tube with you today'
—was that correct?”

“What?”

“He means,” said Evie, “is that how you'd
say
it?”

“Exactly,” said Isaac. “Can a person quote unquote ‘tube'?”

“Isaac's interested in local vernacular and native customs. Which is one reason we're taking him tubing.”

“Well, there we have it! You said tu-
bing
! Is that the correct way, then?
Tubing
instead of
tube
?”

“Gosh,” she said. “I don't know. I think one could also say
tubed
. It's acceptable either way—don't you think, Aaron?”

I tried to play along. “I don't know. It's like boonie stompin'. You wouldn't say
I boonie stomped
. You'd say,
I went boonie stompin'
.”

“That sounds intriguing,” said Isaac. “What exactly is
boonie stomping
?”

“
Stompin'
. Just some shit you do in high school when you're bored.”

“It means to drive a truck around in the brush,” said Evie.

“Ah,” said Isaac. “
To drive a truck around in the brush
. Does that mean we are boonie stomping right now?”

“I guess it does!” she cried.

“Well, hey. All right!”

Actually we weren't, because for one thing we weren't
in
the brush, we were
on
a gravel road going
through
the brush. And second of all we weren't going fast enough, just barely moving at a crawl. Third, there wasn't any alcohol or firearms involved.

“Hey,” I said. “You know there aren't any speed limits out here.”

“Actually there
are
speed limits,” said Evie.

“I like taking it slow from time to time,” said Isaac.

“That's just Isaac's way.”

“What can I say? I prefer to exercise caution.”

“Mm,” said Evie. “You know I like caution.”

Isaac chuckled, and my sister leaned over and put her mouth to his ear and whispered something. I couldn't hear the words, but I could see her lips moving, and what I thought I saw her say—it kind of shocked me. “Caution makes me wet.” That's what it looked like from my angle. It was like,
Evie didn't just say that, did she? No way!
But then why were Isaac's ears suddenly all red?