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Tim’s chest heaves as if he’s experiencing a heart attack. “You’re a crazy son-of-a-bitch, Ry.” Pant. “How the hell is Rick going to move this piece of shit?”
“Chris, Logan, and I will stick around. Once he gets done freaking, we’ll lift the back end and move it so he can wedge out.”
Tim laughs while shaking his head. “I’ll see you at school on Monday.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Anytime. Let’s go, guys. I need a beer.”
I sag to the ground and lean against the tree near the bumper. Chris slides against the passenger door until his butt hits the dirt. We both stare at Logan, waiting for him to join us, but he’s busy studying the two oak trees pinning in our third baseman’s car.
In any circle that doesn’t involve me, Chris, and Lacy, Logan is known for silence and his constant state of boredom. At the moment, so-called silent, bored boy’s mind is spinning like a toddler on a sugar high. It’s ironic: at school, people think I’m the adrenaline junkie because I admire a good dare. Hell, I’m not looking for a high—I just like to win. Logan, on the other hand, thrives on the edge. Gotta love a guy like that.
I’m not the only one who’s noticed Logan’s insane infatuation with the tree. Chris eyes him warily. “What the hell are you doing, Junior?”
Logan winks at me. “Be back in a second, boss man.” He scrambles up the old oak tree. Small dead limbs that can’t hold his weight fall through the branches and onto the ground.
Chris grows restless. He won’t admit it, but heights scare the shit out of him and Logan’s fear of nothing scares the shit out of him more. “Get your ass back down here.”
“Okay,” calls Logan from somewhere high in the tree.
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t have said that.”
From above, tree limbs crackle and snap and leaves whoosh as if a strong breeze rushes through them. It’s not wind. It’s Logan, and one of these days he’s going to get himself killed. A swirl of dirt accompanies the thud on the ground. Logan’s body presses against my foot. On his back, with his black hair full of torn leaves, Logan convulses with laughter. Obviously this isn’t the night he was meant to die. He turns his head to look at Chris. “Here.”
I kick Logan hard when I remove my foot from under his ass. “You’re the crazy son-of-a-bitch, not me.”
“Crazy?” Logan rolls over to sit up. “I’m not the one following a psycho chick into a parking lot for a phone number. Those guys could have kicked your ass.”
Damn. I hoped they had forgotten. “I could have taken them.” They would have eventually handed my ass to me, but I would have given them some bruises as payback. Two versus one are bad odds.
“Not the point,” says Logan.
“Since you mentioned it.” Chris takes his baseball cap off and holds it over his heart. “I’m going to take this moment and remind everyone of the following—I won.”
“I won tonight. So we’re even again.”
Chris shoves his hat back on. “Doesn’t count.”
He’s right. It doesn’t. The only dares we keep track of are the ones we give to one another. “Enjoy the brief taste of victory. I’ll be winning next time.”
We lapse into silence, which is fine. Our silences are never uncomfortable. Unlike girls, guys don’t have to talk. Every now and then, we hear laughter or shouting from the party. Every now and then, Chris and Lacy text. He likes to give her space, but doesn’t trust drunk guys near his girl.
Logan fiddles with a long branch that fell to the ground. “Dad and I headed into Lexington this morning to check out U of K.”
I hold my breath, hoping that the conversation doesn’t turn to where I think it’s heading. Logan’s had this visit scheduled for weeks. He’s a damn genius and will have every college knocking on his door next year, including the University of Kentucky. “How’d it go?”
“I saw Mark.”
I rub the back of my head and try to ignore the nagging ache inside. “How is he?”
“Fine. He asked about you. Your mom.” He pauses. “Your dad.”
“He’s fine. That’s it?”
“No offense, but it was weird. I’m cool that he’s your brother and that he’s made his choices, but I’m not sticking around to play head shrink over your family problems, especially when he had an audience.”
“An audience?” I echo.
“Yeah,” says Logan. “His boyfriend, I guess.”
The twisting pressure usually only reserved for games pummels my stomach. I pull my knees up and lower my head. “How do you know it was his boyfriend?”
Logan’s face scrunches. “I dunno. He was standing next to another dude.”
“It could have been a friend,” says Chris. “Did the guy look gay?”
“Mark didn’t look gay, asswipe,” Logan snaps. “Who would have guessed the damn defensive lineman had it for the home team. And sure, the other dude could’ve been straight. But how the hell should I know?”
Listening to them discuss my gay brother’s possible gay boyfriend is just as comfortable as convincing my mom over and over again that I prefer girls and their girl parts. Nothing makes you think you might need years of therapy like having to say the word breasts in front of your mother. “Can we end this conversation?”
I consider walking back to Tim’s truck and collecting that beer. I’ve only been shit-faced drunk twice in my life. Once when Mark told the family he was gay. The second time when Dad kicked him out for that announcement. Both incidents happened in the span of three days. Lessons learned: don’t tell Dad you’re gay, and getting drunk doesn’t make anything untrue. It just makes your head hurt in the morning.
With a loud crack, Logan breaks the twig in his hand. He’s looking for courage, which means I’m going to hate the words coming out of his mouth. “Mark was all cryptic, but he said you’d know what he meant. He said he can’t come and he hoped you’d understand why.”
The muscles in my neck tighten. My brother didn’t even have the balls to tell me himself. I texted him last week. I outright defied my parents and texted him. I asked him to come home for dinner tomorrow night and he never texted back. Instead, he took the coward’s way out and used Logan.
Earlier this summer, Dad gave the ultimatum: as long as Mark chooses guys, he’s no longer a part of our family. Mark walked out, knowing what leaving meant: leaving Mom … leaving me. He never considered trying to stay home and fight to keep our family together. “He made his choice.”
Logan lowers his voice. “He misses you.”
“And he left,” I snap. I kick the back tire of the car. Angry. Angry at Dad. Angry at Mark. Angry at me. For three days straight Mark talked. He said the same thing over and over again. He’s still Mark. My brother. Mom’s son. He told me how he spent years confused because he wanted to be like me. He wanted to be like Dad.
And when I asked him to stay, when I asked him to stand his ground … he left. He packed up his shit and he left, leaving me and the destruction of my family behind.
“Screw the serious talk,” says Chris. “We won today. We’ll win fall season and spring. We’re going to graduate victorious and when we do, Ryan’s going pro.”
“Amen,” says Logan.
From their lips to God’s ears, but sometimes God chooses not to listen. “Don’t get your hopes up. The scout today could be a one-time deal. Next week they could find somebody else to love.” I should know. That happened at the pro tryouts this past spring.
“Bullshit,” says Chris. “Destiny is knocking, Ry, and you need to get your ass up to answer.”
BETH
I FELL ASLEEP. Either that or my dear old uncle Scott drugged me. I’m going with fell asleep. Scott may be a dick, but he’s a dare-to-keep-kids-off-drugs kind of dick. I should know. He once brought red ribbons and a police mascot to my preschool.
I love irony.
Moonlight streams through white lace curtains hanging from an artsy brown metal rod. I sit up and a pink crochet blanket falls away. The bedding beneath me is still perfectly made and I’m wearing the same outfit I wore on Friday night. Someone has neatly laid my shoes on the wooden floor next to the bed. Even sober, I wouldn’t have done that. I don’t do neat.
I lean over and turn on a lamp. The crystals decorating the bottom edge of the shade clink together. The dull light draws my focus to the painfully cheery purple paint on the wall. Closing my eyes, I count the days. Let’s see. Friday night I went out with Noah and Isaiah and put Taco Bell Boy in his place. Early Saturday, Mom tried to become a felon. Saturday morning, Scott ruined my life.
I pretended to fall asleep in the car so I wouldn’t have to talk to Scott, but I sucked and actually fell asleep. Scott woke me, I think, and half carried me into the house. Crap. Why don’t I put a sign on my head and announce I’m a loser girl who needs help.
I open my eyes and stare at the ticking clock on the bedside table. Twelve fifteen. Sunday. This is early Sunday morning.
My stomach growls. I’ve gone a full day without eating. Wouldn’t be the first time. Won’t be the last. I slip out of bed and slide my Chuck Taylor wannabes onto my feet. Time to have a coming-to-Jesus moment with Uncle Scott. That is, if he’s awake. It may be better if he went to bed. That way I can slip out without the fight.
Maybe I’ll score some food before I call Isaiah. With a room like this, I bet he buys brand-name cereal.
The house has that newly built, fresh sawdust smell. Outside the bedroom is a foyer instead of a hallway. A large staircase, the type I thought existed only in movies, winds to the second floor. An actual chandelier hangs from the ceiling. Guess baseball pays well.
“No …” A woman’s voice carries from the back of the house. I can tell she’s still talking, but she’s lowered her tone. Did he marry or does he keep a fuck on hand like he did when I was a kid? Gotta be a fuck. I overheard Scott tell Dad once that he’d never marry.
I follow the low voices to the brink of a large open room and pause. The entire back of the house—excuse me, mansion—is one enormous wall of windows. The living room flows right into the eat-in kitchen.
“Scott.” Exasperation eats at the woman’s tone. “This is not what I signed up for.”
“Last month you were on board with this,” says Scott. Part of me feels vindicated. He’s lost that annoyingly smooth calm from yesterday.
“Yes, when you told me you wanted to reconnect with your niece. There is a difference between reconnecting and invading our life.”
“You were fine with it when I called last month from Louisville and said I wanted her to live with us.”
The woman snaps, “That was after you said she ran away. I didn’t actually think you would find her. When you described the hellhole she lived in, I figured she was long gone. She’s a criminal. You expect me to feel safe with her in my home?”
Her words slice me open. I’m not that bad. No, I’m not kittens and bunnies, but I’m not that bad. I glance down at my outfit. Jeans. Tank top. My black hair falls in front of my face. It doesn’t matter. She made her decision before she met me. I bury the hurt, step into the room, and welcome the anger. Screw her. “You might want to listen to her. I’m a fucking menace.”
The shocked expression on their faces is almost worth being here. Almost. I press my lips together to keep from laughing at Scott. He wears a pair of chinos and a short-sleeved button-down shirt. It’s a far cry from the outfits he used to wear when I was a kid: gangsta jeans that showed his underwear.
The woman is nothing like the girls Scott dated when he was eighteen. Her hair is a natural blond instead of bleached. She’s thin, but not alcohol-diet thin, and she looks kind of smart. Smart as in she probably finished high school.
She sits at a massive island in the center of the kitchen. Scott leans on the counter across from her. He glances at her, then talks to me. “It’s late, Elisabeth. Why don’t you go back to bed and we’ll talk in the morning.”
My stomach cramps, and a light wave of dizziness fogs my brain. “Do you have food?”
He straightens. “Yes. What do you want? I can fix some eggs.”
Scott used to make me scrambled eggs every morning. Eggs—the WIC-approved food. The reminder hurts and creates warm fuzzies at the same time. “I hate eggs.”
“Oh.”
Oh. The man’s a conversational genius. “Do you have cereal?”
“Sure.” He enters a pantry and I plop onto a stool at the island as far from Scott’s girl as possible. She stares at a spot right in front of me. Huh. Funny. I’m in arm’s reach of a butcher block full of knives. I can imagine the thoughts running through her single-celled brain.
Scott places boxes of Cheerios, Bran Flakes, and Shredded Wheat in front of me.
“You have got to be fucking kidding.” Where the hell are the Lucky Charms?
“Nice language,” the woman says.
“Thanks,” I respond.
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“Do I look like I fucking care?”
Scott slides a bowl and spoon to me, then goes to the refrigerator for milk. “Let’s tone it down.”
I choose the Cheerios and keep pouring until a few toasty circles trickle onto the counter. Scott sits in the chair next to mine and the two of them watch me in silence. Well, sort of silence. My crunching is louder than a nuclear bomb blast.
“Scott told me you had blond hair,” says the woman.
I swallow, but it’s hard to do when my throat tightens. The little girl I used to be, the one with blond hair, died years ago and I hate thinking about her. She was nice. She was happy. She was … not someone I want to remember.
“Why is your hair black?” The lawn ornament at the other end of the island has officially become annoying.
“What are you exactly?” I ask.
“This is my wife, Allison.”
The Cheerios catch in my throat and I choke, coughing into my hand. “You’re married?”
“Two years,” says Scott. Ugh. He does that googly-eye thing Noah does with Echo.
I slide another spoonful of Cheerios into my mouth. “When I’m done—” crunch, crunch, crunch “—I’m going home.”
“This is your home now.” Scott has that calm tone again.
“The hell it is.”
Allison’s eyes dart between me and the knives. Yeah, lady, a couple of hours in jail and I’ve moved from destruction of property to sociopath.
“Maybe you should listen to her,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say through more crunches, “maybe you should listen to me. Your wife’s worried I’m going to go all Manson and slit her throat while she sleeps.” I smile at her for effect.
Color drains from her face. At times, I really enjoy being me.
Scott gives me the once-over—starting with my black hair, then moving on to my black fingernails, the ring in my nose, and finally my clothes. Then he turns to his wife. “Will you give us a few minutes alone?”
Allison leaves without saying a word. I shovel in more cereal and purposely talk with my mouth full. “Did you have to purchase the leash for her or did it come as a package deal?”
“You won’t disrespect her, Elisabeth.”
“I’ll do as I fucking please, Uncle Scott.” I mimic his fake haughty tone. “And when I’m done eating my shitty cereal, I’m calling Isaiah and I’m going home.”
