Brother/Sister (12 page)

“Not all of them,” said Naomi. “There’s Will.”

Just hearing his name come up in their conversation sent a spike of dread running down my back.

“Okay, sure, Will’s not a prick,” said Ruth, “but he’s a freak. You know?”

“He’s not like he used to be,” said Naomi. She pulled her sunglasses down from the place where they were lodged in her hair and covered her eyes with them.

“No? Why?” Ruth said. “You can be a jock and still secretly be a freak. Uh, Tiger Woods, anyone?”

“He’s fine,” Naomi said. “He’s just a little weird.” If she was trying to defend him, she wasn’t doing much of a job of it.

“Yeah, but he still gets that look on his face sometimes,” said Becca. “You know the one I mean? Like he’s either about to start bawling or pull out some nunchucks and do some sort of insane ninja job on you.”

“It’s true,” Ruth said. She just wouldn’t give it up. “You can douse your face with Noxzema, you can buy some new clothes and start brushing your hair, but does that really change anything? I mean, does that make you any less of a serial killer?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s a serial killer,” Naomi mumbled.

“Okay, maybe a child molester. Did you see him at the party Saturday? There were a couple moments when I was almost scared.”

Even Becca got in on the action. “Remember freshman year when Reed Calhoon stole his comic book in study hall and he screamed so loud you could hear it all the way over in the gym? Weird Willy Wanker!”

They broke out laughing—all of them, even Naomi cracked a little grin.

“Weird Willy Wanker,” the words bubbled out of Crystal’s mouth between laughs. “I’d forgotten all about that one.”

Ruth’s face tightened into a vindictive smile. She threw a cruel glance at Naomi. “Weird. Willy. Wanker,” she said, like each word was boulder she was throwing into the ocean. “Is he a good kisser, Naomi?”

Naomi’s face went red. “What? No! How would I know?”

“I saw you flirting with him at that party.”

For a moment, Naomi looked like she was going to vomit up all the Pirate’s Booty she’d been scarfing down, then she swallowed real slowly and said, “For like, two seconds, maybe, yeah, but then he totally disappeared. Like ran away scared . . .” She trailed off and pulled her knees tighter toward herself like she was suddenly embarrassed and confused.

Thinking that if they saw me, maybe they’d feel a touch of collective shame, I moved out from the tree line and picked my way across the rocks toward them.

They’d stopped talking, briefly. Naomi was digging in her beach bag for something. Ruth was looking triumphant, her chin held a little too high as she gazed out across the water. Crystal had grabbed the bag of Pirate’s Booty and was throwing puffs one at a time into the air trying to catch them with her teeth.

The first one to see me was Becca. She didn’t even flinch. “Asheley!” she said. “We were just talking about your party.”

This caught me off guard. I almost tripped over a crack in the rock I was standing on. They all looked up at once.

“Hey, where was Craig,” asked Ruth. “Hard to believe he wouldn’t have shown up.” She was scrutinizing me, holding her glasses up away from her eyes, and for a second I was sure she had seen him, that she knew what had happened and was holding on to this information until she could use it to do the most damage. “Don’t tell me you dumped him over Claudia Jackson.”

Oh. It was just that. More soap opera.

I sputtered, trying to think of what to say. “I, uh, I haven’t really seen him. I . . . it’s been rocky. I don’t know, I . . .”

Naomi looked up from her bag. “He went to Palm Springs.” She said this so matter-of-factly that there was no way of arguing with it. Like it was a fact, no question. “That’s what I heard. He’s at his grandmother’s house, trying to figure out how to get over you. When he gets back, though, Ash, you should forgive him. Really.”

So, wow. Where’d she hear that? I didn’t know what to think. First she trash-talks Will, then she comes up with this crazy stuff about Craig leaving town. Whose side was she on? Or did she even know herself?

“Maybe I will,” I told her. “I’ve been missing him.” Which was totally true.

Then I jetted out of there before any of them could see me cry.

We were in a school bus.
Mom, Dad, me, and Asheley. Dad was driving, he was singing and driving—you are my sunshine, my only sunshine—driving real slow up the Pacific Coast Highway, and the rest of us were sitting way in the back row. There were duffel bags and boxes of food and stuff stacked up in the rows in front of us. We were headed to Big Sur, I knew this, I don’t know why, and everyone was chatty and excited about it. I’d done the packing and I was feeling real proud of what a good job I’d done, holding the checklist Dad had made for me and reading it over and over again: sleeping bags, check; flashlights, check; Coleman lamp, check; all these necessities, check, check, check, check, and I remember thinking,
this is why Dad’s happy, because I checked off everything on the list.
And then somehow we discovered that a bunch of the rows near the front of the bus had been taken out so there was a big open space there, and Ash said, “Let’s put up the tent! We can be camping now!” So I opened the sleeve and dumped everything out and it turned out there weren’t any tent poles. “Don’t tell your dad,” Mom whispered and Dad stopped singing. “What’s that?” he said. And ’cause Ash was so little and easily excited, she toddled up to the driver’s seat and said, “We forgot the tent poles!” She sort of sang it.

Screech. Dad pulled off the side of the road and came racing back toward us, shouting at Mom, “Deb, what did I tell you? What about the list? You just check things off on the list. It’s not rocket science.” And then he’s dragging her by the collar of her T-shirt, ripping it, she’s bucking and pulling behind him, down the steps and out the door. Asheley’s screaming and I’m watching them argue, my face and hands pressed to the window. They’re on this lip of black rock, like a thousand feet up, but I know there’s ocean down there, I can hear it roaring. And then, somehow, the tent’s out there too, flapping around in Dad’s other hand, and he kicks Mom’s legs out from under her and straddles her and pulls the tent tight between his fists and he’s got it stretched across her face. He’s suffocating her. “Will!” she says. “Will!” And I can’t tell if she’s begging me to help her or if she’s telling Dad that this is all my fault. Either way, he’s up and off her now and coming toward me, snapping the tent like a whip as he comes, stomping up the steps and down the aisle until he’s right there on top of me, his face huge and full of rage and the tent comes up between us and I can’t see, all of a sudden I can’t see, it’s just gray and pink plastic everywhere, but weirdly not violent at all, sort of soft and tender and I hear myself shout and then I hear Asheley.

“Hey. Hey. It’s okay, Will. It’s not real.”

I opened my eyes and she was peering over me, smoothing my hair down, coaxing me back.

“It sort of is real,” I said to her. “Dad used to . . .” But then, I stopped myself. I couldn’t tell her about all the crap Dad used to pull. I mean, what would that gain me? It would shatter her, and she probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

Those nightmares, my God.
They were just nonstop. He never told me what happened in them. “Bad memories,” he’d say. They were horrible, though. He’d be whimpering, gasping, then I’d hear him scream bloody murder and I’d go running in to calm him down.

The only thing that seemed to help was if I held him, rocked him like a baby, until he fell asleep.

And then, of course, I’d fall asleep too, half the time, there on his bed. He was a total wreck. As torn up about what had happened with Craig as I was. I mean, we took care of each other. I was really trying to help him hold it together.

Even with Asheley there,
I’d shudder awake every couple hours or so and lay in the dark with my eyes wide open, staring at the keepsakes all carefully organized in my room. It’s like all that stuff, I’d used it to remind myself who I was, and now it belonged to someone else. The Phil Mickelson posters and the framed photos of me as a kid, grinning, swinging my clubs, so proud, the comic books, wrapped in Mylar and stacked in their box, all of it, even the trophy I’d won, what, three weeks ago—it wasn’t me anymore. I’d become someone else and I had no idea who that someone else was.

On the shelf above my desk, I’ve got this Mexican Day of the Dead figurine, just a cheap thing, it’s made of paper that’s been dipped in wax. It’s like a farmer or something, a skeleton man wearing a poncho and a huge sombrero, carrying a crate full of hot peppers. And he’s laughing. His head is a skull. He’s got these glowing yellow eyes. And his jaw sort of hangs open in this crazy grin. And I’d lay awake there, staring at him, staring at his open mouth and, just, think about crawling up inside and shivering there.

Thinking.

And Ash, since the thing with Craig, she’d been sort of shell-shocked. She’d had a hard time being alone, so she was sleeping in my room sometimes. She’d be sprawled out next to me, her legs kicked in all sorts of angles, her mouth open just a soft fraction, making these quiet noises, like she was purring or something. Once in a while, she’d rub at her nose with the palm of her hand and gum her lips a couple times—all this while still asleep—and it was . . . you know? It was the most precious thing I think I’ve ever seen. She moved around a lot in her sleep, and eventually she’d have the covers balled around her, scooched all the way over to my side of the bed and I’d be hanging there on the edge, trying to make myself as thin as I possibly could so that I didn’t touch her, so I wouldn’t disturb her or give her the wrong impression.

It was calming, having her there. I’d wake up at noon and realize I’d somehow managed to nod off after all.

I know this isn’t what you asked me about. It’s all related, though. For the other stuff to make sense, I need to explain this too. I’m not sure why. Should I keep going?

Okay, so there was one morning when Ash was sleeping in my bed and I was jolted awake by noises in the kitchen. Something was rooting around down there. My first thought was, cops. That got me up and out of bed. But these noises, they weren’t brutal, they weren’t the sounds of someone searching and ransacking, they were calm, organized. They had the rhythm of familiarity. Anyway, it was, like, seven in the morning and I figured if they were going to come arrest me, they’d shoot to do it with an eye on it making the evening news.

It was Keith, of course. I peered over the railing and caught a glance at him, straightening things in the living room.

Right away, I shut my door tight, letting Asheley sleep, and shuffled down the platforms toward the ground level. Quietly. It was important not to let him know I was awake until I was down there. I didn’t want him poking around and catching sight of her curled up in my bed. When I got to her level, I peeked in to see what kind of state her room was in. The covers were bunched between the bed and the wall. It was obvious she’d been sleeping there at some point the night before.

I pulled her door tight, hoping it wasn’t too late. I just knew Keith’s mind would slide to the sleaziest conclusions if he found out she was in my room. It always does. It would be inconceivable to him that we’d just been sleeping. He’d be imagining all the things
he’d
do to her if he had her alone in a bed all night long.

Then I continued down the stairs, and tying my flannel pajama bottoms at the waist, I plopped myself down on the second-to-last rung where the stair-platforms jut into the open space between the kitchen and living room areas.

By now Keith had made his way into the kitchen. He had the dishwasher open and was collecting glasses and stacking them in the tray.

“What is this, maid service?” I asked him.

He was dressed for hiking—a pair of faded cargo shorts and his work boots laced up tight, a thick blue work shirt open over one of his hundreds of worn-out T-shirts.

“Just checking in,” he said.

“I told you, you didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, but see, you’re seventeen. I’m fifty-three.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“That means I’m a little better at knowing what has to be done than you are.”

I made a
humpfing
sound, and stopped myself from saying the smart-ass remark that came to my mind hearing this crap from him. It wasn’t a good idea to push it that morning. Best to be civil and get rid of him quickly.

“How long have you been here?”

“Oh, half an hour, maybe. I needed my work gloves. I’ve got a job for a few days helping this guy in Larkspur put in a new deck.”

Work gloves. That meant he’d been rooting around in the shed. Where I’d hidden the bike. I had to know if he’d seen it. I couldn’t ask, but I had to know.

“You don’t even have to come in the house to get your gloves. You can just walk around to the shed and—”

“Got ’em.” He dug a pair of stiff yellow leather gloves out the cargo pocket of his shorts. “Then I figured, why not throw you guys a party? Bacon and eggs. See how it’s hanging.”

He stopped what he was doing then, and holding a coffee mug over the dishwasher, gave me a look that might have been saying,
I know something weird’s going on, Will
. Hard to tell. You can’t really read much in his facial expressions because of those giant plastic glasses of his.

“So,” he said. “How’s it hanging?”

“I don’t see any bacon and eggs.”

“Yeah, well.” He motioned toward the piles of dirty dishes strewn all over the countertops. “First things first, hey?”

I sat there and watched him work, waiting for him to ask about the bike. Craig’s bike. I’d hidden it in the shed. I could come up with an excuse, that wasn’t the problem, the problem was that if enough little clues popped up, the lies might start to contradict each other.