I waited until the next morning to plant the gift card. It was the day of book group, which Aunt Ruby had reminded me of twice this week. It was also my second day off in a row. I was making butterscotch brownies for the book club treat, which weren’t really brownies at all since there was no chocolate in them. Regardless, you put one on a plate, top it with some ice cream and bottled hot fudge, and you had a somewhat-impressive dessert—at least by my standards, but it didn’t take much to impress me where sugar was concerned. I wasn’t a passionate cook.
John was at his dad’s shop again; he planned to install the cabinet boxes on Monday and had some finish work to do before then. I waited until Landon was in the bathroom before taking the gift card out of my wallet and putting it between the cushions of the couch I’d searched a week earlier. To ensure it would be found, I put the remote between those same cushions, then hurried back into the kitchen and measured out the brown sugar. A few minutes later, Landon wandered into the kitchen, looking for food. I suggested a corn dog, burrito, or pot pie. He went with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and asked again when I would be buying Pop-Tarts.
“Why don’t you turn on the TV?” I said, waving toward the flat screen mounted on the wall in the living room. I couldn’t really see the TV from here—half of it was blocked by a dividing wall—but still.
“There’s never anything good on Saturdays,” he said. “I think I’ll play the Wii.” The Wii was in the family room down the hall.
“Well, turn the TV on for me, then. I can at least listen. See if that medical examiner show is on.”
“The gross one?”
“Yes,” I said with a big grin. “The gross ones are my favorite.”
“You’re so weird,” he said, but he obediently went into the living room.
I moved the mixing bowl as far to the left side of the counter as possible so I could watch him. It was ridiculous how nervous I was. I whisked the eggs into the batter between glances into the living room. His cell phone dinged and he stopped in the middle of the room to read the text. I shook my head, whisked too hard, and sloshed the egg-sugar mix onto my shirt.
While I cleaned my shirt, I continued sneaking glances. What kind of twelve-year-old took a full minute to return a text?
“Can I go to Kenny’s?” Landon asked, coming back into the kitchen.
“Is your homework done?”
“Yes,” he said with a proud nod. Since the start of the new term—and two C grades—we’d been working on him getting his homework done right after school. “And I can ride my bike. We’re going to head over to the skate park. You don’t even have to drive me.”
“You can go,” I said, pulling the hem of my shirt away from my waist and frowning at the big wet spot across my stomach. I looked up. “But will you please turn on the TV first?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, hurrying back into the living room. I returned to my whisking and glancing and had counted to twenty-six before he said, “Where’s the remote?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said—lied, really. Gosh, I was a horrible person, wasn’t I? “Look for it.” It would seem contrived if I told him right where it was.
The front door opened, causing my head to snap up. John had said he’d be at the shop until at least five, and Keisha was working until eight.
“Hello?” I called.
“Hi,” Keisha said back.
A flush of heat smacked me in the chest. “I thought you worked until eight,” I said, standing in the middle of the kitchen, trying to come up with a new game plan before realizing I didn’t need a new game plan. Everything was fine just as it was. It didn’t matter that Keisha was here. She didn’t know anything about the card, so what was I worried about?
“They overscheduled the wait staff, which, like, never happens,” she said, still not appearing from the direction of the front door. “But I volunteered to work the graveyard shift tonight if they’d let me come home. It’s book group tonight, right? Hey, Land Rover. Whatcha doin’?”
“Looking for the remote. Mom wants to watch one of her gross shows.”
“Oooh, I love those ones,” Keisha said, making me smile.
I hadn’t moved from where the surprise of her coming in had stopped me, so I refocused on the bowl. Would the brownies still work even though I’d dumped half a cup of eggs and sugar all over myself? If I estimated there was three and a half cups of egg-sugar mixture, and I’d spilled one-seventh of that on myself, then I would need to decrease the ingredients I hadn’t added yet by one-seventh as well to keep the ratios intact. What was one-seventh of a teaspoon of baking powder?
I converted the teaspoon into ccs—five—and then divided that by seven—.714—and rounded it up, though I should technically round it down, and converted it back to teaspoon equivalency. It came out to be just a touch less than three-fourths of a teaspoon. I wish I had my scale from work so I could use grams instead. Weight was always a more accurate measure than volume. In college I’d transcribed a cookie recipe entirely to grams and weighed everything—best cookies I’d ever made.
“Did you find the remote?” I called, feeling my tension rising.
“No,” Keisha called back. “When did you last use it?”
This was ridiculous. “I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t actually watch that much TV. “Did you check the cushions?” That should have been the first place they looked.
“Not yet,” Landon called back. He said something else, and Keisha laughed.
I couldn’t take it anymore and abandoned my baking in order to supervise. I got to the living room just in time to see Keisha hold up the remote triumphantly. “Ha, I found it!”
But not the card? Oh, for the love of—
“Hey,” Landon said, stealing my full attention. I held my breath as he raised his eyes to mine and lifted his hand. “Look what I found in the couch—my gift card from Grandma!”
“What do you know,” I said smugly, internally patting myself on the back. I was a genius. “Didn’t I tell you it would show up?”
“Sweet! Can you take me to the store to get my gun?”
“What about Kenny? Aren’t you going to—” I looked at Keisha and my train of thought derailed. She looked completely confused, her eyebrows pulled together as she stared at the card in Landon’s hand. Why was she looking at him like that?
“Maybe Kenny can come with us,” Landon said, digging his phone out of his pocket. “You can take us, right?”
“Um, sure,” I said, turning toward the kitchen, but not before I saw the expression on Keisha’s face as she looked at me. Pure guilt. My heart sank, and I held her eyes too long, realizing that she was likely seeing the same expression on my face.