The Story of Us (19 page)

When Ben saw you from the window of the house, he took off down the stairs, and out the front door. I think he wanted to go to your house, to get out of there. I followed, but I stayed on the porch as Ben went over to greet you. I listened. Dad still had that tight face, but he got his swingy BS attitude, where he was playing with you but was jabbing at the same time. Being good old dad, but cruel. Like the one time he saw Grandpa Shine after their divorce, at one of Ben’s baseball games, and he shook his hand and slapped him on the back too hard, friendly-like, but then said, “You’re sure looking old.” Joke, joke, as the skin is poked with the tip of a knife.

My father was in a tracksuit, I remember. He always thought he was a great jock, but great jocks don’t need to hurt their teammates on purpose in order to win. God, don’t ever tell him I said that. Forget I even thought that.

I stood there on that porch watching you, and I swear something changed right there. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I did then. You’d gotten broad-shouldered. You were right across from my father, and I saw that you’d gotten taller than he was. I could see it—you were bigger.

I knew Dad was still pissed. That was obvious. Mom was backing up farther and farther, heading into the house. You and Ben were standing there with him. And then it happened.

My father said, “What’s this, little man?” and he snatched that basketball out of your hand. He bounced it. I can hear it now—
bank, bank, bank
. So casual, so slow, but then you turned. You set your back against him in a block, and you snatched the ball back. You tucked it under your arm again. And then you did the thing that still gives me this feeling of thrill and fear when I think about it, even now.

You looked him in the eye. “Don’t fuck with me,” you said.

I know I sucked in my breath and held it, and I’m sure my mother did the same, and Ben, too. I shut my eyes in a protective flinch. But when I opened them again, my father had not done any of the things I had imagined—grabbed your shirt, hit you, pushed you down. No, he just stood there looking back at you, appraising, I guess. And he did nothing. Nothing. He got back into the car, and he drove out of there. Slowly at first. Those
potholes, you had to drive slow. But when he was out of sight, at the place where our dirt road met the paved one, we could hear wheels spinning out, tires spitting rocks.

I felt sick with guilt, and I felt dread, and I felt like cheering. But even more than that, I felt like getting inside your arms and staying there. And something close to that happened. You and Ben walked toward the house, and so did my mother, silent and shocked. You saw me, saw my face, and you put your arm around me. I turned my face toward your chest. I won’t forget, ever, the feel of your T-shirt against my face.

“Come on,” you said.

We all went in. And we didn’t talk about it. Not then, or even after that, probably because it sat too close to this fire, a house on fire, burning loyalty and love and fear and anger. Flames licking up, destroying the pictures and the walls and the furniture that hid the shame—shame because you loved, shame because you didn’t love, shame and guilt about wanting him to pay and wanting him to be forgiven.

Instead, Mom made cookie dough, and we sat around and ate it off of spoons. I don’t think she ever did make the cookies, did she? Jon Jakes was still upstairs, playing on his computer; after Dad drove off, he’d probably gone back to writing chatty letters to his children or reading Mom’s e-mail, which I caught him doing once.

And, of course, my father dropped his argument about us going on that trip. Here’s the confusing part. I felt guilty that she had “won.” It meant that we had won too. It made him seem small. He could be so cruel and you could hate him, but then he’d seem small and you’d feel sorry for him.

The guilt gave way to excitement then, though. The night before we left, Mom and Ben and I played New York songs and slid across the wood floor in our socks, arms out like Broadway dancers. We spent my fifteenth birthday on the airplane, and Mom snuck a cake in her carry-on bag and surprised me with a party. A little flame made out of paper for the candle. They announced it on the intercom. Birthday on aisle six, and there was a smattering of applause, and we shared cake with the passengers around us.
Later you got your snow globe. I bought you a small Statue of Liberty. There seemed to be some metaphor in that.

And when we came back? Everything was different between you and me, wasn’t it? Katie what’s her name was gone.

We sat on that bench out by the library. I was waiting, and then it happened. You leaned in and kissed me. Your mouth—that was the mouth for me. Somewhere in those years I had kissed Josh Gardens after a homecoming dance, but I’d hated it. Have you ever accidentally put your slippers on the wrong feet? Your feet know in a second without looking that there’s been a mistake. But then you switch them around and everything is the way it should be. There’s that fit, a feeling of rightness.

“There,” you said.

There.

Love always,

Cricket

Everyone had let me sleep, I guess, because the next morning I saw that Jupiter had been quietly let out of my room. Rabbit had been ditched a few feet away from her bed. He looked like I felt.

I saw something else on the floor. A small bit of paper folded in half. Shoved under the door, probably. I tried to reach it without getting out of bed, but that became one of those moments you’re glad no one sees. I got up (harder than it sounds) to look. It was a torn-off corner of a piece of notebook paper. It had only one word on it.

Tonight?

It was unsigned, but I knew it must be from Ash. I groaned. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing.
Why
I was doing. God, I was complicating things. I knew I was making a mess. It
was like that time Janssen and I had one of our few big fights. I can’t even remember what it was about now. But I’d been so upset. I was stomping around, pacing. I’d gone into the garage and found a can of paint, and decided I needed a change. I started in on my room, and after one wall, I was tired of painting and the job seemed enormous and my mother was going to be shocked and the rug had been dripped on. But I had no choice; I had to finish what I’d started.

But wait. Another bit of paper? A wrapper, for some kind of nature-trail-hiking-bar thing called Aspen.
Energy for the Outdoors.
Also by the door. It was folded in half too, creased deliberately. I opened it. There was writing on the back.

I hope you’re feeling better,
it said.
Last night meant a lot to me.

I felt a sick hit of confusion.
What?
Totally different handwriting. Ash’s—even in that one word note, I could see that he had the kind of cursive that developed somewhere in the second grade and stayed that way. I should know—mine was just like it. Rushed, because recess was waiting. But the second note—I knew those careful squared-off letters that looked like they’d been written on graph paper. I’d always given Oscar a bad time about it. Old ladies took less time with their needlepoint.

Nothing monumental had happened with either of them the night before, right? RIGHT? Oh no. This is what they said would happen if you drank. It always went this way in the movies, too. Some stupid girl doing things she regretted and didn’t even remember.

There were three people in the dining room when I got down there. Three
beings
. Cruiser and Jupiter and Amy. Jupiter was eating Cruiser’s breakfast out of his bowl as he sat there, crying and whining like a big baby. Amy was on the phone.

“Gotta go. Talk to you later,” she whispered when she saw me in the doorway. She shut the phone, set it on the table next to her. She stole glances at it like it might sneak off without her.

“Jupiter, what are you doing?” I said. “Now, this is just taking advantage.”

Jupiter finished crunching. The bowl was empty. I picked her up, found Cruiser’s bag of food on top of a nearby cabinet, and gave him another scoop.

“Hey,” I said to Amy.

“You look awful,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that. Where is everyone?”

“My baby cousin ran away.”

“Baby Boo?”

“I only have one baby cousin.”

Oh, you could want to say things you’d regret. It would feel
so good
. But the timing was bad—my head hurt. I wouldn’t even get the complete satisfaction I craved. It was true—if you drank, you did feel like shit in the morning. My head really did ache like you hear and my stomach
was
still queasy and my brain felt like it was a slab of that laundry lint you’re supposed to take out of the dryer vent before it becomes that slab of laundry lint in the dryer vent. In our house Ben was the
only one who ever remembered to clean it out. We could have crocheted afghans out of the stuff.

Cruiser was done eating, and I set Jupiter on the floor, petted her with my foot as I tried to decide whether to have one of those muffins or not. They looked deliciously homemade, and there was a big bowl of fruit too. My body didn’t know what it wanted, after that hit of venom.

But it knew what it didn’t want. That smell. Lurking out of the kitchen, sneaking off. It made my stomach flip sickly.

“Smell that?” I said to Amy. “She’s at it
again
.”

“What?” Amy said.

“Pot? You don’t smell that?”

“I thought it was incense,” Amy said.

“That’s not incense.”

“Drugs?” Her eyes were wide. Horrified.

“Illegal drugs, right there in the kitchen. Not ten feet from you,” I said. I may not have known my own mind, but maybe Jupiter did. She sat up straight next to my chair now, as if I were about to eat. She gazed at me with focused intent. Even her little white spot on her back looked serious. I guess I
was
hungry. I reached for a muffin. Dropped her a bit of it. She and Ben had the same appetite.

I heard the front door open and then close. Ted Rose walked in, carrying grocery bags in each arm.

“Morning, ladies,” he said.

“Need a hand with those?” I said.

“Got it covered,” he said, “but thanks.” He headed for the
kitchen, then hesitated. He stopped and sniffed the air, same as Jupiter would. A shadow passed over his face, a speeding cloud, there and then gone again.

There were voices and footsteps and the loud lift of conversation and laughter now in the living room. Mom popped her head in the doorway.

“Found him.”

“He ran off?” I asked.

Mom poured herself a cup of coffee. “Hailey must have gotten up really early this morning. She saw Charles crashing his trucks down here and decided to bring him out to Gavin and Oscar’s tent. Did you know they have video games set up in there?”

“Baby Boo is allowed to play video games?” Amy said. She sounded envious.

“I don’t think so. But he was having a great time. His frog even beat Gavin’s monkey in Road Racers. Hailey felt bad. She didn’t think Jane and John would be imagining him lost on the beach somewhere, or in the sea.”

“
Hailey
was playing?” Amy asked. “Hailey’s never played video games.”

Mom sat down, sighed. “That explains why her teddy bear was in last place,” she said.

“Mom doesn’t think those things are good for you. Hailey’s never done this
before
,” Amy said. Before now. Before we entered the picture. Next Hailey would be shooting up heroin in seedy motels, thanks to us.

Mom ignored her. “They’re going into town to see if they can find a place to buy more controllers. Ben wants in. We were hoping for at least one day of a family activity.” She took a muffin out of the basket, laid it on a napkin and broke it in half.

“Tomorrow, maybe,” I said.

“Since Saturday’s the rehearsal, and Sunday’s the wedding, that’s probably our only chance. Is there something you might be interested in doing while you’re here? Something we all could do?” Mom asked Amy.

“No,” she said. She sat up straight in her chair. Put her hand on her phone as if we might suddenly grab her and take her hostage.

“Your dad says you like shopping.”