The feeling of not being shitfaced after a night out was still strange for Camila, even though she’d been sober a couple of years. Sometimes she still woke up after going to a bar and grimaced as she looked through her sent texts and emails, forgetting for those first few moments of sunlight that there was no way she’d blacked out the night before. Although to be fair, back in the old days, she was off to a pretty good start when she even had her phone in her presence.
Sometimes she missed the honesty of those days. Now everything she said was measured, thoughtful, healthy, or at least that’s what she strived for. Now she did skincare. This girl was nothing like the old Camila. That girl would rip out her own heart on any old Thursday, extend her bloody hands to people who only had soap and disappointment to offer her in return.
She knew it was wrong, that she was so much better off and saner and happier now. But sometimes she missed waking up with her throat raw from screaming fights and her inner thighs bruised purple and red from getting railed by someone who she hated as much as she loved. Now she just woke up with perfectly hydrated skin and the most petite pores you’d ever seen in your goddamn life. She always knew where her wallet was, and she never had to go on an apology tour while nursing a hangover.
Maybe it was a bad omen that Zach chose to text her at the precise moment she was feeling nostalgic for blowing up her life.
She ignored the childish thrill of an unexpected text from a cute boy so soon after seeing him. Honestly, she’d expected to never hear from him again.
Zach
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
Camila pulled up a search on one of her streaming services and found the show.
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
Thanking you with my mouth, Camila thought.
Camila
Zach
Camila
Camila watched the show and laughed until words stopped making sense and she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. Tonight, her cozy bed felt too big for just her.
* * *
Irene was silent on the drive home. Zach let her stew. The parenting blogs said to give teenagers space. When she opened up, he planned to be understanding, compassionate yet firm. Irene would apologize to her friend, but she probably wouldn’t get any more sleepover invites, and Zach wouldn’t get that coveted invite to the parents’ casserole and boxed wine-fueled poker night.
Darn.
They were silent walking back into the house. Irene tossed her bag on the kitchen island.
“So did I ruin your night?” Irene asked. Her tone was mocking, but Zach knew his sister. She felt bad about it, even if only a little. “Were you on a date?”
“No,” he said. “And it wasn’t a date. It was a group hang.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“And kind of a date.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Well, you’ve successfully contained me. Why don’t you go back there and finish her off?”
Zach glared. “That’s a wildly inappropriate thing for you to say.”
“Relax. I’m not a kid. And it’s not like Mom didn’t give me the birds and the bees talk. She wasn’t completely useless.”
Zach sat on the stool opposite her. “You are literally a kid. Did she give you the cuddly version, or the Mom version?”
“She said, ‘Don’t make the same mistakes I made. Wrap it up. You don’t want to lose the best years of your life for two mediocre pumps.’”
Zach laughed despite himself. “That’s even worse than what she said to me.”
“Oh yeah? What was that?”
“She said to keep it in my pants because no one wants to see that, anyway.”
Irene tore the flesh from a mandarin orange. “Jesus. She was unhinged.”
“Yup. She was.”
Irene split the orange into pieces. “I miss her. Sometimes.”
Nodding, Zach stole an orange segment.
“So. Becky must have done something pretty terrible for you to call her what you did.”
“It was stupid.” Irene’s eyes widened like saucers and she leapt out of the stool, throwing her arms up dramatically. “It was over a boy!” she declared, doing a death drop on the kitchen floor.
Zach tried not to roll his eyes. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up. Irene burst into giggles.
“OK, what was it really about?”
She groaned. “She brought up how Mom died.”
He felt queasy. “What did she say?”
Irene chewed her lip.
“Irene. What did she say?”
“Geez. She said her coach had been working the lacrosse team so hard during summer clinics it made her want to kill herself, and then she got all, ‘Oh my gosh, Irene, I am SO sorry, that was so insensitive of me.’”
Zach hadn’t turned the switch in his brain fast enough. He could feel the rage under his fingernails.
Deep breath. Cool again.
“Becky doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Zach said, even as he struggled to unclench his jaw. “It was an accident.” An accident caused by Andrea’s recklessness with booze and medication, but an accident regardless.
“I know,” Irene said. “Which is why I called her a shit-covered dildo and told Hayley that Becky had made out with her boyfriend.”
“That still wasn’t cool, Reenie. You have to learn how to deal with your anger better. You can’t just explode on people like that.”
She held his gaze. “I guess I could always do what you did and just walk away,” she said.
He blinked. “Don’t do that. Don’t hurt me just because you can.”
He wasn’t interested in telling her how wrong she was. What was the point of arguing with her? She’d think what she wanted. And maybe she was right. But regardless, she was in pain. He wouldn’t hold it against her even if she wanted him in pain, too.
Irene softened. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Look, I’m just going to go to bed. I’m sorry I ruined your night, OK?”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” he said. “You need me, you call. I’m here for you, kid.”
She shoulder-checked him as she walked by. “Stop being all sappy. Night.”
He shoulder-checked her right back, putting on the same voice he’d use to talk to an infant or a very cute puppy. “Night, baby sister.”
* * *
The next morning, Zach awoke to the hypnotic scent of 100% Colombian coffee. A coffee pot with a timer was such a simple luxury that he felt ashamed for scoffing at it before. The convenience outweighed the lost sophistication from abandoning his Chemex pour-over habit. It was a point of deep pride that he’d lugged that across continents without even a chip in the glass. Until he got to Pittsburgh and it shattered in the overhead bin, of course.
He didn’t have time for elaborate caffeination anyway. He had a business and a kid now. It was a weird thought — Irene was his sister, and at 17, she could take care of herself for the most part. But he still had to chauffeur her places, pay the bills, keep her fed, factor in her social life on the rare days she wanted to have one, and include art supplies into his budget. That alone was a change. Zach had never been the budgeting type. When he lived alone or with roommates in Philly, he had so few expenses that he saved most of his income.
The chauffeur-chef-checking account roles were easy. The emotional caretaker role was harder. Zach had been a terror at 17, and because his mother wasn’t the meddling type, he got away with it, too. He still thought of Irene as the happy baby for whom he’d had an extra car seat, so he could take her to the park in the evening and wait out his mom’s post-dinner drunken tantrums. He’d always wanted to shield her from that. So he’d pack her into his car or his best friend Chase’s, drive to a nearby park, and sit her car seat a safe distance away so he could skateboard and do a few unimpressive tricks that made little Irene giggle uncontrollably.
But then he left to live his own life. He didn’t know what she’d dealt with every day of his absence, what he’d abandoned her to.
Zach rolled over to turn off the alarm on his phone. He was always awake by the time it went off.
The screen was full of notifications. News alerts, comments on his photo stream, and three texts from Camila.
He put his glasses on and made his way to the coffee. His eyes didn’t leave the screen.
Camila
He grinned as he poured himself a cup.
Zach
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
He took a long sip of his (in fact delicious) coffee and avoided making any sounds of satisfaction. He wasn’t above lying to himself a little, too.
It took longer than the other messages for Camila’s response to arrive.
Camila
Zach
Camila
She sent him a GIF of Kermit the frog sipping tea.
Zach
He decided he should shoot his shot.
Zach
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
Camila
Zach
He had put the wheels in motion to get the tickets last night. He’d texted his old Improv manager, who had a few extra seats he was getting ready to release.
Camila mentioned an Indian restaurant in her neighborhood and they set a time. Zach must have looked pleased, because when Irene walked in, she scowled.
She looked like a small bird to him always, but today her long, blonde hair was enormous with bedhead, and the T-shirt and sweats she wore were at least five sizes too big.
“Nothing can be that good this early,” Irene said, waving limply at his face. She had a truly terrifying set of stiletto press-on nails this week, and clacked them far too close to his eyes as she pushed past him to get coffee. The first sip made her frown.
Zach pulled the French vanilla creamer out of the fridge and set it on the counter without a word. Irene rolled her eyes before pouring a generous amount into her cup.
“Why are you up so early?” he asked.
“No reason. I’ll probably go back to sleep after I drink this.”
“Come on. You’ve gotta have something more exciting planned.”
Irene glared at him. “Sleep excites me.”
“Irene,” Zach said. “You spend most of your time locked in this house when I don’t force you to come to the shop. You should call a friend you haven’t cursed out yet. Go see a movie. Set something on fire.”
She side-eyed him. “You jumped to arson fast.”
“I was being hyperbolic.”
“Oh good, a lecture on being more fun and SAT prep. And I haven’t even had breakfast yet.” She opened the refrigerator and slammed it in disgust. “There’s no food here. This is child endangerment.”
“I’m going grocery shopping today. What do you want?”
“We’re out of shower gel. And I want waffles. Oh. I probably need tampons.”
“Text me the brand,” Zach said. He rinsed out his mug and glanced at his phone. Nothing more from Camila. He tried to subdue his disappointment. It was unbecoming.
A few minutes later, a GIF arrived from Camila — an image of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas throwing open the doors, the caption reading “Eureka!”
Camila
Zach
Camila
He would have to thank her later. It was Sunday, and on Sundays, Zach could set his watch by his dad’s weekly phone call. Irene managed to always make herself scarce around 10 a.m. Maybe that was the reason she’d woken up so early, so she could get her caffeine fix out of the way then hide. Zach wanted to push the issue, but then again, he wasn’t the guy’s secretary. He could call Irene himself. Maybe he did call, and Irene just never mentioned it. But that was doubtful.
Zach poured himself a glass of the almost-expired orange juice when his phone buzzed on the counter.
“Hey Dad.”
“Hey there, Zachary,” his dad said. He often called him by his full first name, and he said it with the enthusiasm of a Saturday morning children’s game show host from the ’90s. “How are things in the ’Burgh?”
“Not much to report,” Zach said. “Hot. Not California hot.”
“Phew, you said it. But Pittsburgh gets humid, and it’s the humidity that really gets you. How are the tomatoes doing?”
His dad still liked to ask about his mother’s garden. He didn’t know whether it would disappoint him or make him feel smug to hear the crop had withered, two vinegary, squishy red lumps the only harvest it had to show.
“Tomatoes are good,” Zach said. “Thinking about making some pico de gallo.”
They went on like this for a bit, talking about the drought in California and baseball and the news. Then his dad put on that tone of voice Zach had come to think of as Business Dad — formal and authoritative.
“I’m taking a couple of weeks off toward the end of the summer and was thinking Irene could fly in, per our agreement.”
Zach suppressed a groan. They’d agreed Irene would spend part of the summer in L.A., but Zach kept putting it off because he knew Irene didn’t want to go. His dad was going to make him try to strong-arm her, wasn’t he?
“I know she’s been a bit... moody since your mom passed,” his dad went on. Sure, that was one way to describe the grief of losing a parent, and having your other parent suddenly remember you existed and trying to accelerate from zero to a full-on relationship after remembering to call on your birthday only 40% of the time. “But I think you could sell her on the idea.”
Zach muted his phone while he banged his forehead against the fridge, then unmuted it. “Yeah, I’ll talk to her.”
“Excellent,” Dad said. Zach pictured him checking the task of asking Zach to handle his dirty work off on his smartwatch to-do list. “How’s the shop doing?”
Where should he start? With the HVAC system that was about to kick the bucket? Or how about the ancient gutters? Or maybe just the overall dwindling revenue alongside the debts his mom hadn’t finished paying off for building repairs over the years? She had such shitty credit in this town, it was a wonder anyone even picked up the phone when Zach called.
“It’s not great,” Zach admitted.
“You know, as much as it would kill me to see that building leave the family, I always thought your mom would be better off selling it.”
That was the plan. In fact, more than one developer had contacted him to express interest since he got back into town. His mom would have called them a bunch of bloated fat cat vultures or something equally nonsensical, then poured herself another pitcher of vodka.
Dad went on. “And you know, you could always come work for your old man. I could use someone with your marketing background.”
There was nothing that sounded more soul extinguishingly boring than going into the hospitality furniture industry. But he wasn’t about to shit all over his dad’s life’s work. His boring, lucrative life’s work that paid Zach’s college tuition, because his father only knew how to parent by writing checks. If he’d had the crippling student loan debt of his buddies, he wouldn’t have been able to peace out of the workforce for an extended vacation the way he did. But it had also been the last time he took money from his father. He realized it always came with strings.
“That’s a good option to have, but I’m OK, Dad. I’m figuring things out.” He decided he needed to get in a dig. “Irene and I are figuring things out.”
Dad said nothing for a beat then turned his cheer back on. “All right, well if you change your mind, the offer is always on the table. And speaking of tables, I’m going to send you pictures of our new model of —”
“Thanks, Dad. I should get going.”
“You’ll talk to your sister?" Dad asked.
Why don’t you talk to her yourself, you cowardly old fucker? “Yeah, I’ll talk to her.”
He hung up, and Irene came trotting down the stairs. She was in one of her more casual outfits, a Metallica T-shirt cut to expose her shoulders, half-tucked into a red sequined skirt. Her sneakers looked like she’d trekked through the desert for years.
“Hey,” she said, “can you drop me off somewhere? There’s this creepy staircase I want to sketch.”
“I need you at the shop for a couple of hours today so I can run errands, remember?” he said. “What time will you be done?”
She pouted. “How about I open today?”
This was a surprisingly reasonable trade. Usually she tried to beg off, but lately he’d been reminding her how expensive her art supplies were. “Deal. I’ll pick you up at 1. Jack will come in before then.”
She grinned, triumphant. “Thank you, thank you!”
He cleared his throat, seeing an in. “Hey, so Dad wanted to know whether—”
“Can we talk about it later?” Irene said.
“Fine,” Zach said, relieved he could defer the topic. “Don’t forget to Windex the display case.”
Irene gave him a disgusted look. “I’ve opened the shop more than a few times, Zachary. I could run that place.”
Maybe she could. Maybe he should try to salvage the shop. Not let the one thing his mother had loved disappear. “I know, Irene. See you in a few hours.”
She put her tablet in her overstuffed purse and headed toward the door.
Sipping his too-sweet OJ, Zach let himself fantasize about a future that didn’t feel bleak. He couldn’t see himself picking up and moving to California to work for his dad. He couldn’t see himself anywhere, had no idea what he wanted to do when Irene left for college aside from not be in fucking Pittsburgh. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to have an emergency escape plan.
He had grudges with this town he was never going to call off.