The Story of Us (14 page)

I put the pillow over my head. I didn’t know who we were expecting that day, except the cake guy. I stayed there in my bed-womb and wished I could hide out for the next seventy-five years or so. That bed felt so good. A safe mini cave, a secret lair. Too bad everyone knew where I was.

Wait. Definitely
not
the cake guy. I could now hear a ton of commotion and a kid screaming.
No wanna! No wanna!

“Someone find Dan!” Mom shouted down our hall. “I think his sister’s here.”

I tucked myself farther down into the covers. I shut my eyes and saw Ash’s face and strong arms, and so I opened them again. God, those stupid raccoons kept me up all night again.
You could hear them tumbling around, thumping and—right, okay—humping, making some weird raccoon mating sounds. Two nights of no sleep, and I was exhausted. The fog was morning-heavy out the windows, but you could tell it was the kind that would clear away, leaving things blue and sunny. I wouldn’t have minded fog all day. Fog was a good weather match with my mood. Why do they call it “feeling blue” when it is actually more like feeling gray?

I didn’t want to see what the new day would reveal next. I didn’t feel up for it. I glared at my laptop, which sat on the desk by the window. Its big mouth was shut closed, and I was afraid of what it might say when it opened again. Janssen was running out of patience. I needed to get my act together, quick. I had no idea how to do this. My act did not feel like it was getting together—it felt like it was coming more and more apart. Anxiety was shaking me like a dog with a knotted sock.

“Hey, Woof. Hey, Jupiter,” I said.

She scrolled her eyes my direction, not moving her head from where it was, chin tucked into paws.

“Are you a regular dog or a superdog today, hmm, girl? You tired? Maybe you just want a rest from all this too.”

She sighed through her nose. Her little warm, breathing self there—I didn’t feel lonely.

“I sure like you,” I said.

My phone rang just out of reach on the floor, and I grabbed for it. I thought,
Janssen, Janssen, Janssen.
Then I thought,
No, no. No Janssen.
Either way, I worried for nothing. It was Gavin.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I said. I ducked back down into the covers.

“Hello, sunshine,” Gavin said. “I’m just calling to tell you that Oscar and me are driving up as soon as he gets here. We told Bob there was a death in Oscar’s family and that I was going to the funeral too, for emotional support. Oscar’s De Niro, man. Real tears. We heard from Natalie there were chicks there.”

“Not your type,” I said.

“Do I have a type?”

“You have a not-type.”

“Hey, I’m open to anyone.”

“I think that’s what I mean. She’s got a jock boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Gavin said. He thought a minute. A great idea apparently occurred to him. “Hey! She doesn’t know I’m a geek! We graduated. I could be anyone.”

I didn’t want him to get his hopes up. “Yesterday, on the beach … she said something about the nerds who like
Star Wars
.”

“Cricket,” he reprimanded.

“Oh, right. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“
Don’t
forget.”

I kept my mouth shut. Oscar and Gavin were two of my best friends. I loved them. They were kind and goofy and smart. But they had this strong, heartfelt belief that nerds and geeks were two different things. I could never quite follow the logic—something about how a nerd could just be a nerd, but
a geek could fix your computer (ha—my words). Honestly? If you watched them do Wii dance aerobics or play War Worlds for three days straight, their argument was meaningless.

“I thought you guys had to work because of some big sale.”

“Home Electronics, there’s always a sale. Like mattresses.”

“Well, great. Come on, then. Your brother let you borrow his tent?” Gavin’s brother, Derek—asshole.
Not
a good guy. Actually, he was an athlete-asshole, which was worse than the regular kind. His gold sports trophies filled the shelves of Gavin’s parents’ dining room hutch. He was always putting Gavin down, in some verbal equivalent of “accidentally” stepping on the back of his shoe. One day in the future when Gavin got a job at Microsoft and made a jillion dollars and Derek was still working at Shuck’s Auto Supply, Gavin could stand up to Derek with every ounce of his thin, muscle-free body and say,
Kiss my Boolean, Derek
.

“Nah. I bought a two-man at REI with that gift card my dad got me.”

“Great,” I said. Gavin’s father gave him one of those cards every year. I guess he hoped Gavin might go in that store full of sporting gear and come out a jock.

“Do you know they got a big rock in there? In the actual building.”

“I know. But you didn’t have to buy a tent. You could stay in a room here. This place is big enough.”

“Nah. You guys do your family bonding. I told you, Oscar and me are
camping
. I got some of that freeze-dried food
astronauts eat. We’ll come in and use the shower. Wait. Oscar’s on the other line. Gotta go. He’s probably here. Tell the chicks we played tight end.”

“Your end is nothing but squish, idiot, from too many hours playing Lord of the Sword,” I said, but he’d already hung up.

I called Ben next door from my phone so I didn’t have to get out of bed. I asked him to pleasepleaseplease take Jupiter out so I didn’t accidentally bump into Ash looking like I was looking. Actually, I didn’t tell him that last part. He came over a minute later and got her. He’s such a great brother, even though he’s an idiot.

I lay there awhile until I came to the conclusion that what I wanted to hide from was still in bed with me. My mind could do the work of unraveling without my body moving an inch. It was time to leave the comfort of my sweet, isolated, feather-down cell.

The shower washed away some of my bad mood. This lasted until I went downstairs. In the dining room there was a pregnant woman with long dark hair, and a tall man with one of those beards guys wear to compensate for their bald heads. They both were looking down with gaga eyes at a little boy with a head of blond curls, who wore a bathing suit and no shirt and who was now putting a striped kitchen towel over Cruiser’s head. Cruiser just sat there. He didn’t seem to know what was expected of him. I felt bad for him. The boy yanked the towel and shouted
Boo!
and Cruiser flinched, startled. The kid put the towel back on Cruiser for another round, and
Cruiser spun his head to get it off. He caught it in his teeth, causing the bald man to snap
Hey now!
at him.

“Bad dog!” the man said, grabbing the towel back. But Cruiser was revved up now. He set his front paws on the ground, butt up in the air. He thought it was time to play. If Jupiter had stolen that towel, they’d have never gotten it back without a fight. She had the jaws of death, and you had to lift up her back end to get her mouth to open.

“Cruiser, come here, boy!” Mom lunged but missed, and Cruiser took off on a few racetrack-dog spins around the dining room table. I wished Jupiter were there. If she walked in, it’d be just like when our elementary school principal, Mrs. Benson, would suddenly show up in a class that had a sub.

“Cricket!” my mother said when she noticed me. She looked frazzled already, and the day hadn’t even started. Cruiser was under the table now, wild-eyed and panting. “Jane, John—this is my daughter. Cricket, this is Charles.”

“Can you say ‘Hi,’ Baby Boo?” Jane said.

“No wanna.” The little guy even folded his arms. Wonder who did that at home.

I tried my talking-to-little-kids voice. “Are you going swimming?”

Which was obviously the wrong thing to say. John, the kid’s father, suddenly thrust out a hand, stop-sign-fashion, at me, and the mother let out a little cry of alarm.

“Wanna go swimmy,” Baby Boo whined. “Wanna go swimmy!”

Jane opened her mouth. “We promised—”

“WANNA GO SWIMMY!”

Mom flinched at the scream. So did I. It sounded like an electric saw hitting metal.

“I’m sorry if we’re
bothering
people,” Jane said.

“No, not at
all
,” Mom said.

“Look, Baby Boo, lookey,” John said. “Look at the pretty.” He held up a crystal salt shaker from the table and shoved it into the kid’s face, jiggling it back and forth.

Mom’s smile was stuck. Her voice was singsongy. She sounded like Teacher Karen from my old Little Miracles Preschool when she said to me, “Dan’s doing a hike today. To some cabin, where the original settlers of the island came from? Supposedly there are ghosts there. Gram and Aunt Bailey are bringing their cameras. Ben and the girls are going …”

I heard it for what it was—a plea.

“Oh, cool,” I said. I hoped my tone said what I felt. She’d owe me big for this.

“Bus is leaving soon. I think Ben’s waiting already in the foyer. After you grab breakfast. Look! Croissants!” She stuck a couple of them into a napkin and shoved them at me. She headed over to the big silver tank of a coffeepot in the corner of the dining room that Rebecca and Ted always kept filled for guests. She pressed the lever for the thin stream of liquid. Her hands were shaking. Too much coffee herself, or another bad sign piling up against the other bad signs. She popped the lid onto the cup, or tried to.

“Gimme that,” I said. She was never good with things that required manual dexterity—lids on cups, keys in keyholes, driving, generally.

“I owe you,” she whispered.

“WANNA HOLD PRETTY!” Baby Boo shrieked.

The smell of pot snaked through the dining room.

Ben stood with his arms folded, looking out the windows beside the front door.

“Dreaming of escape?” I said.

He turned. “She suckered you, too?”

“She owes us,” I said.

“I already spent breakfast hearing how Hailey and Amy’s mother makes elaborate gingerbread houses every Christmas, worthy of magazines. Castles. Victorian mansions. You can make icing bags out of Ziplocs, did you know? She’s immensely talented.”

“Hey, I hope you told them how Mom actually got the new vacuum cleaner bag in the vacuum that time without your help.”

“Come on. She could make the Bodsky house out of mashed potatoes.”

The Bodsky house was a piece of shit. I laughed. “Gavin and Oscar are coming today sometime.”

“Thank you, God. I hope they’re bringing their Xbox.”

George came down the stairs, in another crisp outfit of khaki shorts and a polo shirt. I wonder how many of those he
had. He looked tired, though. “Coffee to go?” he said, looking at my cup. “We are off to practice. To hit a few buckets of balls.” I hooked my thumb toward the dining room.

“Bad night’s sleep?” I said. I knew how he felt.

“Fucking raccoons,” he said.

He might have meant this literally.

“On the roof,” George said to Ben, who looked confused. Ben could sleep through anything. “Right above us.”

“You might want to move fast,” I warned him. “Screaming kid.” He hung a left. I felt bad for him, getting stuck with us. Our family dysfunction was at least
ours
. Sure, I had a love-hate relationship with it, but I’d inherited it, same as, say, some ugly but meaningful vase. It had meaning to you, even if it scared the crap out of everyone else.

“Did you hear that?” Ben whispered.

“Yeah, I hear it right now,” I said. Dan’s angry, muffled voice somewhere above us, Amy’s voice complaining back at him, a high-pitched rising whine and then silence, same as someone trying to start a chain saw. Wait. Two thoughts about saws in as many minutes. Bad sign.

“Not that.”

“I saw Mom last night. She was pissed about something. Upset.”

“Not
that
. You’re not listening. Anyway, she can take care of herself—”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Cricket, don’t be an ass. You know, you miss what’s right in front of you.
George
. Right above
us
? What’s up with that, huh?
Us
?”

“Oh, give it up,” I said. “You bored or something? Please. Us, meaning our
rooms
? What are you trying to do? You sound like Gram.”

“I know what I saw.”

“Okay, right. Uh-huh.” I started to laugh. “If what you’re implying is
true
? If something like
that
happens? I swear, I’ll go
with
Mom when she flees to some airport.”

“Not without me, you won’t. Anyway, no airports here.” He sounded kind of sorry.

There was the sound of foot thumps on stairs. It was Dan, clapping his hands heartily. Dan was not the hand clapping type either, but he was doing it a lot lately. It made him look like a PE teacher. “Okay, guys. Change of plan. The girls are staying here. I’ll be driving you guys to the haunted settler’s house—”