You probably want to know about Andrew—how he greeted me and crap, huh? Here it is in sum: Andrew was pissed.
On the way into the White Shells, Tovi again tried to warn me, but I couldn’t really get my head around how bad it was that I’d shown up.
As she opened the door for me, she said, “Remember. Be ready. Your little brother threw a hissy when you called.”
“I don’t get it. I’m here to look after him.”
“No you’re not,” Tovi said.
“Uh,” I paused. “Why would you say that?” I thought maybe she knew that I’d used his disappearance as a convenient excuse to skip Michigan. Freaked me out.
“You didn’t ask him if you could come. You didn’t leave a message saying you were thinking about it. I don’t see the big deal…or didn’t until I saw you in person and realized you totally, one-hundred percent, look just like your dad. Plus, Andrew…Andrew’s trying to escape you, you know?”
“Me? Why escape me?”
“You’ll have to ask him,” she said.
I walked in. Tovi followed.
The White Shells does not have what I would call the nicest lobby in the world. Sort of looks like it was built in the ’80s for, like, gold-chain-in-their-chest-hair, cocaine-smuggling dudes. It’s white and faded light green and pink and a little stinky, at least in the morning. It smells like moist, mushy dog carpet, probably because there is mushy green carpet.
And this was weird: even though it was pretty early, four dudes wearing Hawaiian shirts (like Andrew does constantly, now—I have pictures to prove it) sang around a piano in the corner of the restaurant. (This was the first time I saw the Golden Rods in action—more about them in a moment.) They sang a Beach Boys song, which is pretty much all they sing, except for other beach music, like from that guy who sings about margaritas and cheeseburgers. I can’t remember his name.
“Those guys saw Andrew playing the piano last week and asked him to help them out,” Tovi said, pointing at the old farts.
“Andrew plays with them?”
Then she said, “Yeah.” Then she stopped. She said, “Do you have any idea what’s going on, what we’re doing?”
I shrugged at her. “Maybe.”
“You’ve been left out of a lot.”
“I have?”
“Duh.”
“About, like, Randy Stone?” I asked.
“No. That’s done. That stupid Randy Stone crap. Andrew threw his cigarettes in the ocean.”
“Andrew really smoked? Are you kidding?”
“He couldn’t smoke. He looked ridiculous and coughed, and I yelled at him for being an idiot. Plus, his cigarettes were Steve’s…you know, your dad’s? I guess Andrew found them in a crawl space in your house last summer.”
“My dad smoked?” I said. What? “He was an athlete.”
“Right. I don’t know, man. That’s what Andrew says. Anyway, the cigarettes were like twelve years old or something, really dry. When he’d light one, it would catch fire instead of smoke, and he’d have to throw it on the sand so it wouldn’t burn him. He and Big Rod—the lead singer of his band—threw the rest of the pack in the gulf yesterday.”
“Littering.”
“I know, but it’s good, you know? He says Rod taught him he doesn’t need to hide behind a fake detective. He has to take responsibility for his emotions.”
I paused and stared at Tovi. She sort of mock-stared back at me (bulged out her eyes and opened her mouth). “Okay,” I said.
“What?”
“I guess I don’t really know Andrew.”
“Me either. But whatever.”
Then I started nodding really fast, because Andrew’s a nut. “It’s possible he’ll drive us totally crazy. Do you understand?” All the crap he’d pulled last summer flew through my brain, Aleah. The fire where he burned his clothes? The pirate shirt? The shaved head? The constant digging through boxes in the attic and garage? The screaming matches with Jerri? The vegetables? The shoving? The locked bathrooms? Holy cats, you know? Remembering this, I wonder why I think of Andrew as the sane one in our family.
“If this was going to be easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing,” Tovi said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, Felton. Ask Andrew. That’s the kind of crap he says. At least before you called saying you were here. Now, maybe he’s come to the end of his ability to deal with hard stuff.”
“Why should me being here be hard?” I said.
“Because everything’s so easy for you.”
“It is not.”
“Andrew thinks so.”
“He doesn’t know crap then,” I said.
“I don’t know crap, man. Other than we look like twins.”
I nodded at her.
Tovi guided me over to a big, cracked, white leathery padded bench across from the bathrooms. She told me to sit and wait. I sat. Then she walked a couple of steps to this counter, pressed some coffee from this urn thing into a Styrofoam cup, and handed it to me.
“You want me to drink this brown stuff?” I asked.
“Trying to be a good host,” she said. Then she smiled really big. “Enjoy your coffee, Felton. I’m going to go get your little brother.”
I nodded. I sipped bitter freaking coffee. I waited. Andrew? Crazy Andrew?
You know what tastes bad, Aleah? Coffee. It made me gag. But nerves made me keep sipping. Then my legs started twitching.
I thought: How the hell did Andrew find this girl? Our cousin? This girl has a whole life in our family that isn’t our family but is our family? What am I doing here? What is Andrew doing? How am I such a big problem? I have it easy? Ha! What if this girl is my twin and there are more terrible lies? What if she and Andrew were switched at birth? Wait, that would make her his twin…
These crazy thoughts kept flying.
Freaking out, Aleah.
Wait. Where the hell’s Gus?
While I sat there accidentally drinking terrible coffee, I looked around for Gus. He hadn’t left while Tovi and I were in the parking lot. He wasn’t in the lobby. Did he leave? Why is he here in the first place? What the hell?
Fifteen, twenty minutes had passed and he hadn’t returned from the bathroom.
Did he just say, Done? Did he leave me behind? Jesus!
Then I wondered why the hell those dudes were singing at like seven in the damn morning. Then I wondered if Tovi would even come back. I could feel the big bruise on the side of my face throbbing. Then I got a little dizzy and wondered if any of this was really happening.
Have you ever actually paused and thought, while your eyes are wide open, “Is this now? Am I here right now? Is this a dream?”
• • •
I’m sort of doing that at this moment, here in the bus station, Aleah.
• • •
About twenty minutes later, I suppose, although it felt more like several days (me bouncing up and down on my ass cheeks), the elevator doors opened, and Andrew and Tovi stepped out.
I stood up fast.
Andrew wore a Hawaiian shirt like the singing dudes, which might have made me laugh if I weren’t going crazy with coffee, etc.
He stopped and stared, his glasses slid down his nose so he looked like an owl.
My heart pumped harder.
Heat rose on my neck.
Without smiling he said, “Good morning, Felton. What’s wrong with your face?”
“Gus punched me.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said.
Then I became a rambling man. “Andrew, you’re totally crazy…you’re in Florida…what the hell are you doing…this could be dangerous and I’m not a fan of flying off the handle on some kind of wild adventure without even notifying the authorities, i.e., Jerri about the fact that you’ve made contact with our family that always hated us…and now what? Are you trying to kill our grandfather or something, or are you trying to rob…”
Tovi shouted, “Stop, man!”
I did.
Andrew stared for a second, then said, “Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?” I shouted.
“Because I ran away,” he said. “I took Greyhound buses here, all the way from Green Bay. It was disgusting,” he said. “An old man put his feet on the window next to my face,” Andrew said. “I earned being here. I earned being away from you.”
“Why don’t you dudes go to the beach and hash this out,” Tovi said.
“There’s nothing to hash out,” Andrew said. “Go home, Felton. I’ll talk to Jerri about this when I’m ready, so leave her out of it.”
“I wasn’t going to tell…”
“I’m going to practice my crappy music now,” Andrew said.
“What?”
“Stick it in your butt,” Andrew said. “You’re a giant pecker.” Then he turned and walked to the dudes in Hawaiian shirts who were not singing but staring at us.
“Jesus Christ, Andrew. Come on,” I called after him.
He flipped me the bird, Aleah. It felt like a kick in the nuts. Not Andrew-like.
The big singer (the one I found out is named Big Rod and is Andrew’s new best friend), gave me a weak wave.
I sort of waved back. The room spun.
“Come on,” Tovi told me. “We should hit the beach or something.”
I followed her. None of this felt real.
• • •
Nothing feels real right now. I’m going to grab some water.