Future Perfect (7 page)

He puts his arm around me and squeezes. “You're a good kid,” he says to me. “You know that?” Annabelle Lee huffs again.

“Careful!” I snap, and shift her to my other arm, pulling away from him.

“Whoops!” he says cheerfully. “Did I flatten her? She'll spring right back. She's just a big fluff.”

We stop in front of our house, the rattiest on the block. All the lights are on, in every room, bright enough that it looks like the sun has come back up. I will walk through the whole house and turn them all off, one by one. The overhead lights and the table lamps and the wall sconces and the standing lamps and the desk lamps and the task lights, all of them except the one on the end table next to the couch my father will stretch out on to supposedly go through new MLS listings but actually fall asleep.

“Everything will be okay,” he says suddenly. He's looking at the blazing bright house instead of me. The refrain of my childhood and every year of my life and every bump and scrape
and bruise inside and out.
Everything will be okay,
or could be. I knew it wasn't true. Not everything was okay. But for my father, it's still an unshakeable, unassailable fact about the world.

“Right, Toby?” he says. Toby barks and spins in circles.

I trust Soto's judgment more, and her face is as sad as ever.

“Toby knows what I'm talking about,” my father says.

“Toby might be the only one,” I say, and he elbows me.

“Chip off the old blockhead,” he says, and takes the front steps up two at a time, the dogs bobbing along in his wake.

O
n Saturday I wake up seventeen years old and the first thing I do is run to the bathroom and drop to my knees. It's the gift that keeps on giving—I'm sick for a long time, hanging on to the side of the bowl with my eyes closed and my heart jittering, holding my hair back with one hand. I can hear Soto snuffling at the bottom of the door, and then the jangling of her collar. The sound of tiny claws on the wood floor tell me Toby and Annabelle Lee have joined the party.

The doorknob rattles and then the knocking starts, louder than my heart.

“No,” I say, hunched over the bowl and resting my forehead on my arm.

“What are you doing?” my brother says. His voice is muffled and loud, like he's smooshed his face against the door. Soto makes her tiny happy yelp. “Aw, hi, honey. Hallo. You are such a good girl. What is this thing? This is a dog?”

“Mateo?” I say. My brothers are supposed to be at college. My stomach lurches.

“Best surprise ever,” Mateo says. “Are you throwing up?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Do you have bulimia?” he asks.

“Shut up, Mateo,” I say. Nausea is oozing through my body, up my throat, and I am trying not to let it out again. I swipe away the strands of hair that are sticking to my forehead.

“Aha, you
do
have bulimia!”

“I don't have bulimia, Mateo.”

“Oh okay,” he says. He sounds disappointed. “I've heard good things about it.”

I grimace. “Why are you here?” I slump back against the wall and rub my eyes.

“It's your birthday,” he says. “Surprise! Are you coming out of there? Clara wants you to come down for breakfast. Why are you throwing up again?”

I cover my face with my hands. Maybe if I am quiet and it's dark he'll go away. But he's like a tick, or my conscience. I scrub at my cheeks with the palms of my hands.

“Are you really sick?” he says, and he sounds concerned this time. “Did you eat bad clams?”

“I'll be out in a second,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. “Hurry up. Waffles!” He goes thumping down the hallway, Soto's toenails clacking along behind him, and
Toby and Annabelle Lee scurrying to keep up. I can hear him shouting at Lucas, the shaking of the house as they all thunder downstairs.

Both my brothers are here, then. Everyone is downstairs waiting for me. I drink a glass of water, tepid from the tap, and then refill it again and then one more time. I brush my teeth and wash my face and avoid looking in the mirror. Even through the bathroom door I can hear my brothers shouting over each other and pans clattering and chairs being dragged screaming across the old linoleum.

When I appear at the kitchen door, Soto makes a happy circle and Toby yaps and races around the kitchen island. Annabelle Lee yips from the crook of Mateo's arm. Lucas takes two long strides over from the center island and hauls me into a hug. “Ashley!” he says. He rocks back, lifting me just a tiny bit, and goes, “Oof!” and I push away. Soto circles around me and I scratch her head until she huffs and wanders off. Mateo's sitting at the island with a plate of bacon in front of him, feeding strips into his face like he's a wood chipper and ignoring Annabelle Lee's tiny bark, which is vibrating her entire body. My father's hair is sticking straight out from his head in all directions. He is practicing his pancake flips while my grandmother sips coffee out of a World's Best Grandma mug, which the twins bought her for her birthday last year because they thought it was hilarious. It suits her the way a propeller hat would suit a Tibetan monk. She uses it only when
they visit, and that's because they take it out and put it in front of her. She is perfectly pulled together even though it's not even nine in the morning. The rest of us look like animals who just crawled out of hibernation.

“I thought we were having waffles,” I say, tightening the belt of my big fuzzy pink robe.

“Happy birthday, kiddo!” my father says, glancing away from his pan. “Will you please shut that little thing up?” he says to Mateo.

“Dad thought waffles would be too messy,” Mateo says, his mouth full of bacon. He hauls Annabelle Lee up against his chest and scratches the back of her neck while she squirms.

“I'm the one who washes the dishes,” I say, pulling out the stool next to him and hopping up. I reach for a slice of bacon but Mateo slaps my hand away.

“It's my birthday!” I say.

“Matthew,” my grandmother says. “You are not twelve years old.”

“It's still my bacon,” he says. Annabelle Lee sighs and collapses against his shoulder, quiet now.

“So share your bacon,” I say.

Lucas grabs the plate from behind Mateo's other shoulder and walks around to the other side of the island.

“Dick!” Mateo says.

“I want bacon,” I grumble. I can ignore my queasy stomach for bacon.

“Making more right this second,” my father says. He steps back to peer into the oven window. “Almost ready. All of it yours.”

“Is that my birthday gift?” I ask.

“I thought that was just a Tuesday,” Mateo says, and nudges me in the side, his elbow sharp and pointy.

“No, on Tuesday I eat an entire cow,” I say.

“Aw, don't look like that,” he says. “You know I'm kidding.”

My grandmother sets down her mug and pushes it toward Mateo. “Make yourself useful, Matthew,” she says to my brother. He hops up and gives her a big smacking kiss on the cheek. He grabs her mug and wanders over to the coffee machine, Annabelle Lee still draped over his shoulder.

Lucas pushes the plate across the island to me. “Knock yourself out,” he says.

“Thank you,” I say, and take an extra-crispy piece.

“I'll just eat the fresh batch,” he says.

“Why are you here?” I ask him. “Do you
have
to be here?”

“It's your last birthday at home,” he says, with his hand in his chin. “How do you feel? Do you feel terrified about your future and all the stupid choices you've made and all the mistakes you're about to make?”

“I could come home for my birthday next year,” I say. I take another piece of bacon.

“Once you leave you're not coming back,” Mateo says,
hopping back on his stool and kicking mine in a steady beat.

“Why not? You come back all the time. It's like you've never left. It's like we're never going to get rid of you,” I say.

“Yeah, but we're like ten minutes away.” He leans over and drops Annabelle gently on the floor. She pads off around the island with Toby in fascinated pursuit. Soto is lying at my feet with her chin on her paws, looking off into the distance.

“Like five hours away,” Lucas says.

“Fourteen hours and eight minutes,” Grandmother says. “By car.”

“Who's counting?” my father says. He was the one who drove on that trip and I think he has blocked it all out, the fights over the radio and my grandmother's giant paper map and her acid anger about speed limits and roadside diners and me lying in the backseat with my ear buds cranked up so loud even the open windows couldn't drown out the bass.

“Okay, an hour by plane, though,” Mateo says.

“It's only eight hours for me,” I say, as my father slides a pancake onto my plate. It is lumpy and pale on one side, black on the other.

“First one for the birthday girl,” he says. “As is tradition.”

“Thank you,” I say. I pick it up and drop it on the floor, as is tradition. Soto snatches it before it lands. “Good girl,” I say.

My father makes a
humph
noise at me and slides the next one onto my plate.

“Really?” I say. “Did you cook this?” I poke at it, and it oozes. “Are you eating these? You are going to make yourself sick.”

“Really, Charles,” my grandmother says. She slides gracefully off her stool and circles around to the stove. My father backs off as she lifts the handle of the pan and examines the pancake splatter that is currently bubbling. “This could be acceptable,” she says. She sets the pan down and crosses her arms.

“It'll burn,” my father says.

My grandmother doesn't answer. She arches her eyebrow at him in the way that I can too and he slinks away to peer into the fridge. Soto hauls herself up and pads over because my father with his head in the fridge is often an unexpected bounty of his impatience.

Mateo bounces up from his stool and heads for the foyer. The dogs all perk up and fling themselves away from the fridge and out of the room, barking. There are voices, and I think I recognize all of them. When Hector is at the kitchen door, still talking to Mateo about whatever, I am unsurprised. He looks around and finds me and his whole face lights up as he throws his arms out.

“Happy birthday!” he says. He's dragging me off my stool and he is squishing me. “Happy birthday, gorgeous girl!” He gives me a big smacking kiss on the side of my face, halfway between my mouth and my cheek and I can't help smiling. He drops me
to shake hands with my dad. I stumble back and end up tipping my stool.

I catch it and settle it back into place while he's trading hellos and various physical greetings with all the people in my family. Fist bumps and cheek kisses and handshakes, and I sit myself back on my shaky stool and eat another piece of bacon and then another while Hector and my brothers talk about the various benefits of breakfast as the first meal of the day.

Soto has vacated, because she is nervous around Hector, and Annabelle Lee and Toby have come trampling through the kitchen and out the back patio door, off in the backyard to be small dumb dogs. I think it's for the best, because Hector has a swooping-and-overwhelming problem. He wants to gather up all the puppies into his arms at once and have quiet moments full of peace and unconditional love. I think sometimes that Hector does not actually understand how love works. There is a tiny piece of my heart that worries someday he might figure it out. And I'm not sure where that will leave me.

My grandmother slides two perfect pancakes onto my plate and smiles at me and my heart hurts.

“They are very beautiful,” I say, because they are. They look like fashion-model pancakes and I suddenly feel hungry. I pull the syrup jar over and pour it in perfect, swooping gold loops across my perfect pancakes until Mateo smacks my hand and messes up the design.

“Don't hog it, hog,” he says.

“Don't be an ass, ass,” I say.

I drop the syrup on the table. He snatches it up and starts drowning his stack of pancakes, which are just as perfect as mine.

“Are you ready to go?” Hector is bouncing next to my stool. He looks on the outside the way I feel inside, full of itching powder. My mouth is full and I point at it. “Chew! Chew! Chew!” he says.

“All aboard!” my father says predictably.

I swallow. “Have a pancake,” I say, pointing at the plate with my fork.

“I don't want a pancake,” he says. “I want to go get your party stuff.”

“Ashley will eat all the pancakes for you,” Mateo says.

“She can eat them later,” Hector says. He looks at me. “What if they're all sold out?”

“Of what?” I say with my mouth full again.

He shrugs. “I don't know. Napkins?”

“Unlikely,” I say. I stab another bit of pancake and he watches me anxiously, like the dogs do sometimes. “Okay, fine,” I say. “I'll go put pants on.”

I pick up my plate and shuffle out of the room with it. I hear my grandmother say, “For god's sake, Hector, sit down.”

I can feel myself dawdling. I run a brush through my hair and put it in a ponytail and take it back down and change T-shirts three times, even though each one is the same as the last, the
University of Seattle ones my brothers bring home to wash and then forget about. At the door, I pause and turn right toward my father's room instead. It's a mess, with piles of clothes and books and empty Fanta cans lining the windowsill. I dig through the clean laundry basket for my mother's Harvard T-shirt, run back to my room with it. It's tight at the boobs and it looks good on me. I'm the same size as she was, which I realize surprises me. But I'm smiling when I bounce back into the kitchen and sing, “Ready! Let's go! Let's go now!”

My grandmother smiles at me again and holds her arm out. She pats me on the shoulder when I lean over to kiss her soft cheek. “This will be a very good birthday, darling. I can promise you that.”

“Oh,” I say, and then Hector is pulling me by the elbow out the door.

I'm quiet in the car all the way to the next town over. Our town is too small to have its own party store. Hector's in the passenger seat, singing along to the terrible San Luis Obispo radio station we get, cranking it up another notch every time a new song comes on and shouting, “Oh man, I love this song!” He's out of the car and sprinting for the party store as soon as I hit the brakes.

“Why are you so excited?” I say as I catch up to him, and he throws an arm over my shoulder.

“I'm always excited,” he says.

“But you're
extra
excited. Even for you,” I say, shrugging out from under his arm and pushing through the jingling door. All the associates in the store look up.

“Hello there, can I help you with anything?” the cheerful-looking white man with the long gray braid says.

“No, thank you,” I say as I follow Hector down the aisle, though it looks like he's disappeared. He'll be back soon; it is like he is attached to me by an elastic cord.

Hector sneaks back up behind me while I am considering Daisy Duck napkins, which are on sale. He slips a mask over my head. He laughs when I yelp. “You're Wonder Woman!” he says, spinning me around. I can't see much through the narrow, crooked eye holes.

I pull off the mask and look at Wonder Woman's empty eyes. I snap the elastic around my wrist because I don't want to leave her alone in the store. “Maybe,” I say.