It’s one of those mornings after that I used to have a lot at Dad’s house, so at first, I’m thinking I’m back there, but then a banging pushes through the fuzz, and I realize that Mom’s voice is coupled with the pounding. And that can’t be good. My hands press hard into my eye sockets, trying to push some sense into my foggy brain.
“John! Wake up!”
My mind searches for what I did last night. Pete’s house. Right. That means it’s Saturday. Mom has never made me get up early on a Saturday for no reason.
Bang! Bang! Bang! “John. We have to leave in half an hour.”
I blink as I reach for my cell. Have I slept till four in the afternoon or some shit? Leave for where? My cell says it’s eight thirty, so now I’m really confused. My head is not in any shape to try to figure out this real-world word problem.
“What’s up?” I croak as Mom heads down the steps.
“You have an appointment this morning.”
“Since when?”
She stops on the staircase and turns. “Since yesterday. And don’t give me that look. I left you a note.”
My head spins—and not from my hangover. I know better than to ask the questions running through my mind. With Mom, the who-what-where-and-whens are always a trap, and I don’t want to get caught.
“You have twenty-five minutes now. I’d hurry if I were you.”
I don’t waste any more time and jump in the shower, letting the cold water blast my face.
I turn it as hot as it can go. The combination of extremes gets my blood going. I’m out of the shower and back in my room in under ten minutes. That’s when I see the note Mom left me last night.
Made appointment with Steve for tomorrow at nine thirty. Sorry so early. He’ll give you a later time from now on. I’ll take you.
Great. It’s not that I mind seeing Stevie-boy. It’s a court order anyway.
But this early after a night of Jack Daniel’s? Not my favorite plan. Also, why the rush? Steve’s office is five minutes away even with Mom driving.
I throw on gym shorts and a new lacrosse T-shirt that somehow found its way into my drawer, my anger starting to stir. What gives Mom the right to go through my crap, even if it is to give me new clothes? I grab my stash from last night that is wedged under my pillow and a roll of duct tape from my desk. I lay on the floor, tape the bag to the underside of the desk drawer, and grab my cell.
I’m not even downstairs before I hear him. “Momomomom.” Ryan’s up.
I paste a smile on my face and enter the kitchen.
Livy waves at me from her seat, waffle bits still on her plate. “Morning,” she says, her mouth full. My stomach growls. Loud.
“You’ve got five minutes.” Mom takes a washcloth to Ryan’s face, his wheelchair pushed up to the table. He closes his eyes and pushes one arm forward, the other arm swinging wildly. Mom ducks, then turns to Livy. “You staying here or coming with?”
“I’ll stay.”
I look at Ryan. Really look at him. I haven’t seen him much since I got home. But here he is in the flesh. His hair is longer, and it actually looks cute like this, you know, if he was someone else’s brother. My big brother Ryan, Old Ryan, went through a long hair phase too. He thought he was the shit, right before the accident. Pissed me off how he used to ruffle my hair and say, “Don’t worry, some day you’ll grow into it.” Such a smart-ass. I smile, thinking about it now, but back then, it drove me crazy.
I look at this New Ryan. This New Ryan is not cocky or arrogant. He’s not scheming about ways to disappear so I couldn’t hang with him and his friends. This New Ryan probably has no idea who I am.
He swings his head toward me. “Jaaaahhhh.”
OK, maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe he does know me. My heart does a little jump, like it’s trying to get in tune with my brother. I wave. “Hey, Ryan.”
He smiles.
Ryan’s upper body is normal sized, but his legs are skinny, and his head is a little oversized still. If I pushed back his hair, we’d see scars from the operations he’d had to release the pressure in his skull.
Ryan used to be a super jock. My big brother, kind of super at everything. Mom’s perfect child. Everything she dreamed of in a son. Until I wrecked it for everyone. Can’t you follow simple rules? Simple fucking rules?
Ryan’s head lolls on his neck, and his eyes go to the ceiling like he’s looking for a sniper or something. But then he looks back at me, smiles, and bangs on the table with one hand. He’s got braces on his legs that keep his legs from locking, but he spends most of his time in his wheelchair.
I smile back and bang on the table, which he finds hysterical based on his goofy, smiley reaction. Which makes Mom laugh, which makes me feel like maybe I’m winning this round a little.
Rosie pops her head around the corner, offering me a plate of waffles and a cup of coffee, and all of a sudden, today feels like my birthday.
I reach for the plate, my stomach groaning.
“Hurry,” she says, nodding at Mom, who’s wheeling Ryan to the car.
“Three minutes, John.” Mom’s in full take-charge mode. Along with Mom’s other triggers, she cannot stand being late.
I cram two huge bites of waffle in my mouth and swear I hear myself moan. I’m so not used to home-cooked food.
“John! Now!” Mom calls from the garage.
I kiss Rosie on the cheek. She pretends to be flustered. “Go.”
I shovel the rest of the waffle in my mouth, swipe my face with my napkin, and head for the van. When I get there, Mom’s already got Ryan’s wheelchair in the back and him in his seat, where she is trying to fasten the clips that hold him in place.
Mom looks up from Ryan’s seat, her face set at pissed. “Can you help?”
“You get in. I’ll take care of Ryan.”
Ryan turns at the sound of his name and smiles at me. It’s kind of sweet, and it chokes me up a little. “Hey, buddy. What’s up?”
“Stupid seat! Shit!” He yells. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” He slams his seat with stiff hands.
“Nice mouth.” I reach forward for the buckle. “Settle down.”
That must piss him off, because he starts swiping at me. I duck, but judging from how mad he is, if his punch connected with me, it would hurt. I put my finger in his face. “Don’t.” I buckle his seat belt and slide his door shut. I open the passenger door and jump in. I don’t say anything, because at this point, my head pounding, my brother going nuclear, and my mom not dealing, I am over it.
“He hates his car seat. Doesn’t mind the car, just the seat.”
“No seat,” Ryan chants. “No seat. No seat. No seat.”
Mom flips the mirror so she can see him. “Settle down, Ryan. You’re fine.”
She flips the mirror back and pulls out of the driveway.
“So I’ll drop you off and…”
“Momomomomom!”
The sound is unreal. So loud. Mom’s face gets tight. I know that look. I hate that look.
Usually, I’m the one firing her up to blow. I want to do anything to keep that from happening. “So Ryan’s therapy is…”
“Momomomom.” Ryan screams some more. Then bangs his head against the side of the car, which Mom padded so he won’t get hurt.
Mom rotates in her seat fast. “Stop that! Don’t you dare do that!”
That just makes him bang his head more.
She tightens her grip on the steering wheel, shakes her head. My stomach goes from hangover sick to sickened. I unhook my seat belt.
“What are you doing?”
I climb into the captain’s chair next to Ryan. “Just keeping my brother company. Hey, buddy, what’s up? You’ve got to stop that. We all have to sit in our seats. All of us.”
For whatever reason, my climbing back there stops his tantrum. I can see that he’s made a red mark on the side of his head from hitting it despite the padding that Mom’s attached to his seat. I can’t reach that spot, but I rub his head anyway, and he looks at me. His eyes do this thing where his pupils get pin tight then really big and black. And I wonder for, like, the hundred millionth time if only things had been different that day. If he had. If I had. If only… He looks out the window, and one of his legs bounces up and down a little.
“Get your seat belt on, John,” Mom says, her voice a little choked up.
Ryan turns toward me and reaches out. I take his hand. “She drive you crazy too?”
“Mom crazy.” Ryan twirls his finger next to his ear like we used to do when we were little. Back then, we both called Mom loco, and I feel like I’m losing it. I can almost see Old Ryan calling Mom crazy behind her back, me laughing. Does he remember that?
We drive like this for a few minutes, Ryan holding my hand, me not hating that, and also wondering a lot about my brother, both Old and New Ryan. Mom peeks in the rearview a bunch of times until she stops the car in front of Steve’s office. “You want me to walk you in?”
I laugh. “I’m not five.”
“I could leave Ryan in the car for a few minutes…”
Even if I wanted that, no way would I let her based on what I just witnessed. My brother is out of control. Mom’s on the edge. I can do this without them. I unbuckle my seat belt. “I’m fine.”
“When you’re done, text me. Ryan’s therapy is just down the street in the Richmond building. You remember where that is?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“He’ll be done right after you, so you could even wait here if you didn’t want to walk.”
“I’ll walk. Don’t worry.” I look Ryan straight in the eye. “Don’t you do that anymore.” I point to where he hit his head.
I know my plea is no different than anything Mom’s said to him a hundred times, but I do it anyway, because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve become the big brother now, telling him what to do. He needs to listen.
Mom closes the van door, and Ryan starts up again. It’s a wonder she can drive when he’s like that. And once again, the beast shows up. He’s always been like this. He always wins.
I try to close my mind to the dragon I know is just trying to protect me, but it’s not going to change anything, being all mad. So I wave to Mom and brace myself for what comes next.
• • •
The office building is the same as it’s always been. The memory of my first time here rushes to greet me as I walk down the hallway.
I go into the elevator, hold the door for a mom who is trying to hurry her son.
“Thanks.” She smiles at me. He’s on a video game and looks younger than Livy. “You want to push the button?” she asks.
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not five anymore.”
I laugh. He’s kind of a little asshole like I was. I appreciate that.
“Three, please,” she says.
I push the button, and my mind goes back.
I remember walking into the building holding Uncle Dave’s hand.
“We’re going to go see someone,” Uncle Dave explained. “His name is Steve.”
I ran ahead. I wanted to push the button for the elevator.
In the office, there were huge tanks filled with the coolest fish I’d ever seen. I was trying to count how many there were when a door opened. A man in jeans and a T-shirt walked out.
“Think you can guess my favorite?” he asked from across the room.
“Um, this one.” I pointed to a red fish with black spots on its tail.
He nodded. “She’s a beauty. But not her.”
I pointed to another one. He shook his head. I gave up after pointing to every fish in the tank. I didn’t get it.
He smiled. “I sort of tricked you. My favorite is in my office. It’s not a fish at all. It’s called a Chinese water dragon, and it lives in its own tank. Wanna see him? He’s amazing.”
A dragon? He had to be kidding. I ran into the office. A tank ran the entire length of the wall with branches and plants and a little pond. And inside it was the coolest lizard I’d ever seen.
I open the door to Suite 213. The receptionist is new, but everything else is the same. I give her my name, and she tells me to take a seat, that Steve will just be a few minutes.
Instead of sitting, I make my way to the fish tank. It’s filled with new fish, pretty gold ones, striped Nemo ones. A royal-blue one.
“That’s Dory.” Steve’s voice startles me to the present. “She’s my new favorite.”
I turn to face him. “No more Chinese water dragon?”
“Lost him last year. If your mom had given me the heads-up, I’d have had a replacement here in time for your return.”
“You think I’d fall for that shit?”
“I hoped you would.”
I rub my hand over my razor stubble. “Don’t you think I’m too old for that bullshit?”
He looks at his hands. “Maybe. But maybe the older we get, the more we need to believe in magic and dragons.”
I smile. Steve. Always the same.
He puts his hand out, and we shake, then do the man hug thing. It’s kind of comforting that Steve’s the same mostly. A few more pounds in the gut, a little older looking, but still so easy and calm and lots of laugh marks around his eyes.
He gestures to his office. “Shall we go get our talk on?”
“You betcha.”
Steve’s laugh is easygoing, and when I get in the office, see the tank where the new Chinese water dragon is waiting, I say, “I thought you said…”
“I’d never let you down, John. This office wasn’t the same without him anyway.”
I lean against the glass that separates the lizard from the office. “Poor guy is trapped. Don’t you feel sorry for him?”
“You never described the last one like that. Why the change?”
“I’m a different asshole now?”
“You’ve grown up. You had your freedom when you lived with your uncle. Now you’re trapped with your mother, where you never wanted to be.”
That was way too easy for Steve. And also very true. But that doesn’t mean I want to get into it. I knew I had to see Steve, and the truth is, I didn’t really mind, but I also didn’t really think about what that would mean entirely.
“This guy’s deeper green. You got any opinions on why I’d say that?” I flop onto the love seat, gray and soft, the pillows like a cloud cushioning my fall.
Steve’s sitting in a brown leather chair directly across from me. He’s got a table next to him and a bottle of smartwater on it.
“Smartwater? Really?”
He shrugs. “What can I say? I’m getting older and require more upkeep.” He points to the mini fridge at the end of the room. “Need anything?”
“Some Jack would be perfect.”
“Coke, Sprite, or bottled water.”
“You gotta work on your menu. Sad really.”
Steve weaves his fingers together. “So when do you want to get started on the real stuff?”
“Man, Steve, no foreplay? Wow.”
Steve’s voice is deep and warm and easy and makes me relax, even though I’d never tell him that. “How’ve you been since you moved away?”
I sit straight up, point to the massive file Steve has strewn across his lap. My file. “You mean sent away. Kicked out. Told to leave, or have you forgotten?”
Steve nods and runs his fingers through his goatee, tries to look all wise. “Yes. I remember.”
“And if you don’t, you could always look it up, right?” This is just how Steve and I are. We give each other shit. It’s why I like him.
“Right. So you’re saying you still have feelings of abandonment since your mother asked you to leave? Is that how you’d like me to write it?” He cocks his head like a son of a bitch and holds the pen in the air as if waiting for my order.
“And I have trust issues. Write that next.” I get up and get a Coke out of the fridge. “I still think I’d open up easier if you plied me with Jack Daniel’s.”
“I’ll take what I can get with the ten tablespoons of sugar you’re downing.”
“Man, you have gotten old. So what do you want to know?”
“How are things?”
“I’m back here, so how good could they be?”
He nods some more. “You want to talk about why you’re here?”
“Come on, you’ve got the whole court-ordered bullshit.”
Steve flips through the pages of the report. “You were a little busy in Chicago, huh?”
I want to rip those pages. The ones that mandated weekly sessions with Steve for anger management, probably random drug tests, a probations officer.
“Stupid kid stuff.” I switch to a lower baritone, trying on my best grown-up voice. “But I’m pretty disappointed in myself anyway. Hey, why don’t we take away my video games and kick me out of paradise? That sound about equal to some arrogant asshole’s mailbox?”
“The mayor’s mailbox, you mean?”
I smirk. “Yeah. What if I told you he started it?”
Steve leans back. Lets his leg drape over his other one, knocking his foot up and down, up and down. “What if I said you sabotaged yourself?”
I laugh. “Now you’ve really flipped a lid or something. Why the hell would I do that?”
“You tell me.”
Anger races through me. He’s right—I killed my only chance of being with Uncle Dave. Dad’s brother. The only one in the family who is like me in the least bit. I feel my beast stir. It focuses on Steve’s bouncing foot. Watches it go up and down, up and down. Up and fucking down like Leah doing those bouncing little jumps. Over and over. Laughing. Her hair in its bun, but all I wanted to do was take it down and watch it fly.
“John?”
More bouncing. Until I can’t take it anymore. “Stop it!” I stand. My hands go to my head. I’m acting crazy. I can’t act crazy. Steve’s cool and all, but there are limits. Even for him. I sit. “I’m sorry. I just…” My head goes into my hands again, but through my fingers, I can see Steve’s adjusted his posture so that both feet are flat on the floor, which lets me breathe out. “I’m sorry. Yeah. I screwed up. It was stupid. I was stupid. I’m always stupid.”
Why can’t you follow the fucking rules, John? Simple. Fucking. Rules.
Steve waits for me to calm down, then asks, “How’s your mom?”
“She should be in here. She’s ready to snap. For reals.” I take a slurp of Coke.
“Tell me about that.”
I sink back into the couch. The feeling of sitting here when I was ten, nine, eight years old comes back to me. All those times. Trying not to let Steve get too close to opening the vault. My dragon of protection guarding it like mad. Now it seems stupid. After Leah, there are worse things than admitting how I really feel. “She’s on edge all the time. Ryan’s not sleeping. He’s aggressive. She keeps trying to act like it doesn’t bother her. Still doing the family dinner thing. Salad plates, for fuck’s sake.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, who cares about salad when your life is going down the toilet?”
“Some might say your mom is being courageously optimistic?”
“Yeah. I get that. But it’s never that easy with Lydia Strickland, is it? Because the thing is she’s lying to all of us. Deep down, she doesn’t even believe this shit either.”
“What makes you say that?”
I take a drink and let the syrupy taste roll around in my mouth. I pretend there’s Jack mixed in. I think about smoking that weed Pete gave me. I try to calm the dragon, who has fully woken up and is pacing inside me. “She’s fucking looking for a place to put him. After all this time, after all her bullshit. After everything, she’s going to send him away. None of it mattered. It was always going to end like this. God, she’s so stupid. I’m so stupid.”
Steve puts the tips of his fingers together, making a v with them. He brings them to his face, leaves them in that space between his mouth and chin. This is my signal to keep talking, but all I want to do is shut up. The anger is churning through me now; all the stuff I’ve been shoving down is boiling out of control, climbing, climbing from my gut up my throat. If I don’t let it out, I’ll die.
“John? You with me?”
I stand. “I just can’t take how angry I am around her.”
“Go on.”
I’m pacing. “Being in the same room with her makes me feel like I’m on fire. I’m faking it. Big-time. Of course I am. I have to. But I can’t help how much I hate her sometimes.”
“Why do you hate her?”
I shoot him a look that he’s gone too far. So he clears his throat, motions for me to sit, and says, “Instead of faking it, maybe we could work on some strategies to calm the beast.”
I sit. “I’m listening.”
Steve lowers the file on his lap. My file. He takes off his glasses. Rubs his eyes. “You know the solution to all the anger?”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “No.”
“If we could get to the bottom of—”
“Off-limits.”
“It would help. I could maybe hypnotize you so remembering that day is easier.”
The dragon roars. The fire licks my face like the coffee did that day. I get dizzy. I stand. Have to move. Have to. “No. No. No. I don’t ever want to talk about that day again.”
“OK. So let’s talk about ways to stay calm when you face the dragon.”
I should bristle that he’s used that term, but it’s like he uses it to show me he remembers. And that calms me down a little. Steve’s got me. He’s going to keep pushing me and pushing me about that day, the day Old Ryan died, and I’m going to keep saying no. It’s what we do. That will never change. There’s no freaking point to any of this therapy bullshit, but it’s the way things are and always will be.
The dragon stands down as we listen to Steve tell us how to deal. My hands are still shaking a little, but the heat leaves me, and a coldness replaces it. Like how I imagine swimming in the cold Pacific Ocean would feel. The dragon slinks back into his cave, his cold-blooded body the same temperature as a block of ice—and ice is way better than fire.
• • •
When I finally make it out of my appointment and pull out my cell, Emily has texted.
Ready when you are.
I have to adjust my brain so I can focus on her message, because at first, it makes no sense. Then I realize she’s talking about coming to get me so I can work on her car. I text back.
I’m at the Riverbridge building. Pick me up and we can go from here.
On my way.
I breathe out, and my fingers wish for a joint to magically appear. I sit on the brick wall and text Mom.
Emily is picking me up.
Mom calls right away. “Hey.” I hear Ryan screaming in the background. Screaming his head off. “Hey. It’s fine if you go with Emily, but can you two swing by here? Ryan, it’s OK. Settle down.” Thud. The call drops.
Suddenly, my beast is standing up, roaring. I call Mom back. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah.” Pant. “Oh, someone from the therapy place is helping.” To somebody else. “Thank you.”
“Mom?” In the two seconds it takes her to answer me, my head is exploding. “Mom? Are you OK? Can you please answer me?”
She’s breathless. “John?” As if she’s forgotten we were actually talking. As if I’m not even a blip on her radar, while I am hanging on her every fucked-up syllable. “John?” A small laugh. “Yeah. I’m OK. Sorry. Go with Emily.”
Ryan says “Go, go, go.”
“We’ll see you later. We’re fine. I’m fine. Sorry.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. We’re fine. We’ll see you later.”
I want to tell Mom she’s repeating herself. I want to tell her to call someone else when she needs help. I want to scream at her until she sees that she doesn’t have just one child. That I matter too. That I exist. Instead, I look up as Emily pulls over. I wave to her. “Em’s here. Got to go.”
“OK. Let me know when you’re coming home.”
“Will do.” I hang up, not waiting for any more orders from her. I will myself to stop shaking. To let the fire go out. The thought of the ocean comes to me, and I let it bathe me until I’m cool enough to proceed.
Emily looks even cuter than I remember her. Her hair is down, silky straight, and her eyes are this amazing hazel color with honey-gold specks thrown in. “Hey. Ready?”
I banish the dragon for real and jump in her car. “As I’ll ever be.”
“Well, all right then.” She navigates her car toward downtown. I realize how uncomfortable I am as a passenger in a car. My fingers drum on my leg. Her eyes take in my “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” solo. “A mechanic and a musician. Wow.” We pull into a parking space in front of an AutoZone.
“You have paper and pencil?”
She opens her purse, pulls out a small spiral notebook with the Yale emblem on it.
“You want to be a Yalie?”
“Or Princeton. Or Harvard. Or USC. Or pretty much whatever school takes me. And gives me a huge scholarship. You know Yale pays full tuition for anyone who gets in.” She hands me the pad. “I want to be a journalist. I think.”
“USC would get my vote.”
“You want to go there?”
“California? Definitely. College probably isn’t in my future.”
“Why?”
I pull open the glove compartment and take out the owner’s manual. Write down the model number. Writing things down is good, because when I’m writing, I’m not thinking of Leah. 1996 Camry LE. Silver. I know I don’t need the color, but I wish I did. I wish I had a ton of things to write right now to drown out Leah’s voice that reaches across time.
“You’d never go to college?” She asked, her voice soft. I’d taken her on a picnic, which was the cutest thing I’d ever done for a girl. She was eating grapes. Everything had been perfect. The day. The picnic. Us. Then that question. “You’d never go to college? You’re so smart.”
And the realization that for her, I would go to college. I started to work on my grades. It wasn’t hard.
Dad never noticed. Neither did Mom. I’m not even sure they looked at my grades since I’d left Mom’s. There never was any reason to. I got by doing as little as I could. Solid C work was the way to fly under the radar. Only last year, my guidance counselor, Mr. Hicks, did obviously. He called me into his office the fall after Leah killed herself. Last year. It was supposed to be my senior year until I just gave up and dropped out.
“We got your scores back on your SAT, John. These are college scores.”
“I’m not a college kid.” I walked out of the office, slamming the lockers on my way.
It was like Leah was still with me in that moment. And that should have made me happy, but it just made me madder than I’d ever been. Not the dragon that time. Me.
“John?” Emily’s voice this time. Here. Now.
Here, there’s no Leah. No stupid guidance counselor. Nothing. I am in the now. I swear I am. I grit my teeth. Force myself to settle the fuck down.
“John?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I was just remembering something I need to do.”
“Do you want to do this some other time?”
“No. It’s cool. I mean, there’s something I have to do after this.”
My hand shakes as I give her back her pen. We walk into the store. She points to the row of jingle bells that hang over the door, announcing visitors. “Welcome to last century.”
I chuckle, but I’ve already cased the strip mall for the liquor store I need and am readying my excuse to her.
She’s got this little green leather backpack purse thing slung over her shoulder. It bounces as she walks, and it’s hysterical, because she’s plunged straight ahead without knowing what we are looking for or where we are going. If I was trying to get her to be into me, I’d ride her about it, but since I’ve sworn off being anything but friends, I keep going.
“This way.” I tug on her bag. “The stuff we need is down here.”
We are in the right aisle, and I’m looking for the specific part I need.
“How do you know how to do this stuff?”
“My uncle Dave is huge into cars.”
“He the one you were living with? Before here?”
And once again, this girl knows way more about me than she needs to. Thanks, Livy. “Yeah.”
“That’s cool. I guess I’ll have to thank Uncle Dave too?”
“I still haven’t done anything.” I hand her the box with the part.
“Well, I’m gonna go buy this, and then I’ll let you impress me.”
“Sure. I’ve gotta run a quick errand. Be right back.”
I don’t wait for her to answer before I’m out the front door, the stupid jingle bells accusing me of being an asshole. I’m down the sidewalk in six steps. In front of the liquor store. About to go in when a police car pulls into the parking lot. I stop to fake tie my shoes. The cop goes inside. I freeze. Fuck my life. Even if I wait until he’s gone, the guy in the store will be on high alert. I stuff my hands in my pockets and meet Emily as she’s leaving the Auto Zone.
“Hey.” Her eyes trace my last steps. They light up along with a wicked little smile. “Any luck?”
“No.” I rub my hand across my face. Consider trying to lie. Then decide there’s no point. “My good fake ID was confiscated. Didn’t want to try this one with that cop around.”
“Your lacrosse friends couldn’t hook you up?” She rocks back on her heels, her hands tucked under her backpack straps, a knowing smile on her lips. She’s giving me shit.
I rub my hand across my stubble. “Sure. But…”
“Maybe I can help.” She dials her cell. “Hey, Maybeline? I need a favor.”
I point to the driver’s side, and she shrugs, hands me her keys. She puts her hand over the phone. “What’s your pleasure?”
I almost choke. “What?”
“What do you want my friend to get you? Tequila? Rum?”
“Jack. Jack Daniel’s.”
She gives the directive into the phone. Before we even leave the parking lot, I’m feeling all kinds of interested in this good girl who just made my day.
• • •
I finish fixing the fan, and Emily turns on the car to try it out.
“All right! You are amazing!” She kisses me on the cheek and holds up her phone. “Let’s go get your reward. It’s two blocks away.”
We walk down the street just as Mom rounds the corner, pushing Ryan’s wheelchair past the curve that leads into our neighborhood, the S-turn that Mom always says is a death trap. Livy and I used to laugh at that, even though it wasn’t so nice, I mean, in light of everything. Pete came from inside the neighborhood that day, so the curve had nothing to do with the accident.
“Hey.” Mom coughs a couple of times. She looks a little winded, and I’m kind of surprised, because she’s usually in such good shape, but Ryan’s gotten pretty big, so he must be hard to push.
When he sees me, he starts kicking his feet and waving his hands. “Jaaahhhhhn!”
I jog to meet up with them. “Hey, Ryan.” Then to Mom, “Isn’t he supposed to walk some?”
She nods, still gasping for breath. “Some. Just not long distances. Where are you guys headed?”
“Just picking up a study guide from one of my friends,” Emily says smoothly.
“Great Expectations,” I add. “We’re reading that in English, and I’m behind.”
“I used to love that book.” She coughs again. “Miss Havisham is one of my favorite characters.”
I pat her on the back. “You OK, Mom?”
“Probably just a cold.”
“Why don’t you head in? We can take Ryan with us.” I look at Emily to see if she’s cool with that, and she nods.
Mom looks at me like she can’t believe what I’ve offered. Like I’ve suddenly sprouted wings and a halo, and that pisses me the hell off. “Never mind.”
“No, that’s great. I’d love that.” Her hand goes to her hair, smoothing it back under the baseball hat she’s wearing, the one I have never seen her wear. She points at the levers on the side of Ryan’s chair. “You’ve got to put the brakes on when you’re on the hill.”
“I know, Mom.”
I slide my arms down the side of the chair and onto Ryan’s arms. “Tell Mom to chill. We are just going for a little walk.”
He answers me with a resounding chant. “Push! Push! Push!”
Which makes Mom smile. She puts her hand over her eyes to block the sun. “How far you going?”
“Just on Sycamore,” Emily says.
That’s a block and a half.
“OK. That would be great if you took him. He’d probably really like that.”
I stand behind his chair and whisper in Ryan’s ear. “You ready for liftoff?” I push hard and make a rocket sound. Ryan laughs and squeals.
Mom’s face goes white. She shakes her head. If it wasn’t my family, it would be funny. Hilarious even. But when Mom growls low and mean, my face heats, and my insides churn. “Honestly, John, what are you thinking? You could drop him.”
As if I could do anything to hurt him now. A meteor couldn’t hurt him.
Ryan, buying a hundred percent into Mom’s crazy, starts screaming and kicking. He’s got this high-pitched squeal that I did not miss while I was away, and just like that, another perfect Strickland family moment is in the crapper. Deep.
Emily gets in front of Ryan, holds his hands. “Sh, all’s fine. Come on, Ryan. You want to go with us, right?”
Amazingly, Ryan starts to settle down. It’s like Emily is the Ryan whisperer or something. Emily winks at me. “My mom says all moms are overprotective. They can’t help it.”
Mom’s face softens. “You know, you’re right. I’m sorry, John. Just try to be careful. He’s not used to roughhousing.”
Ryan starts to hit his wheelchair arms. “Go! Go! Go!”
Mom laughs. “Now you’re taking his side too, huh? I’m going to go in and lie down. I’m very tired. Obviously, you’ve got this under control.”
As Mom dabs her eyes and walks toward our house, I can’t help but stare at Emily, who is nothing short of astonishing in her ability to surprise me in every way.