Leftovers (9 page)

I've never hosted a sleepover before.

I switch on the light in my cabin and take in the small space. There's just enough room to lay out an old blanket for Judy on the floor between the bed and the dresser.

But Judy has other plans. Ten seconds after we reach the cabin, there's another blinding flash of lightning. With a howl and one enormous bound onto the loft bed, Judy wiggles herself under my duvet. Come up and join me, her big shiny eyes plead.

I don't remember Brownie ever talking to me with his eyes and body the way Judy does. He never tried to sleep in my bed either. Not that he'd ever had the opportunity. Dad made Brownie sleep in the garage, even in the winter.

I know Dr. Fred's dog-training books would advise me to reach up and haul Judy off my mattress by her scruff. But I also know that she'd jump right back up with the next flash of lightning. I consider letting Judy take the damn bed and sleeping on the floor myself, but if she were to jump off the loft bed sometime in the night and land on me, I'd be dead. Squashed flat like the Wicked Witch of the East under Dorothy's house. Like dog poo squished under a boot.

Only one thing to do.

I climb up beside Judy, reaching over her to yank the cord that turns off the light. I lie down and squirm around, trying to get comfortable. Lightning flashes again and Judy pushes up against me, whimpering. There's room for both of us on the narrow bunk, but just barely.

Loud rumbles continue, shaking my flimsy cabin walls like a minor earthquake, for a good half hour more, but as the lightning diminishes, Judy settles. Her fur smells of dirt and grass despite all her swimming. Her feet smell like nacho-cheese Doritos. Judy sticks out her juicy tongue and licks my cheek, panting hot, kibble-scented breath in my face and nuzzling her wet nose into my neck. “Thank you,” she seems to be saying, as if I am personally responsible for sending the storm packing.

If only I had that much control over her life. Or my own.

Great. Judy snores. I'll never get to sleep.

This time, the joke's on me. Cramped in that loft bed, overheated by a giant fur ball who refuses to budge,
fur tickling my nose, damp doggie breath polluting the air, I sleep. Deeply. Dreaming of toasted marshmallows, guitar music, cool breezes and warm wet kisses.

Weird.

After lunch cleanup a few days later, I'm down on the beach with Judy, taking my so-called afternoon break. It's quiet out on the channel today. A few freighters chug along in the distance, but there's not a tourist boat in sight. Gentle waves lap at the shore with a sound like little dogs lapping water from their bowls.

Judy is stretched out in the cool gravel beside me. She's been bounding in and out of the river for the past half hour, chasing sticks and seagulls. Finally she's ready to take a break too. Catch a few dog
zzzzzz
's.

Footsteps crunch toward us along the beach path. Sullivan plunks down on my other side. “You okay?” he asks me, kicking off his high-tops—purple polka-dots today— and digging his toes into the gravel.

I toss him what I hope is an “everything's peachy” grin, but it feels strained and lopsided, more like a sneer or grimace. “Why wouldn't I be?”

Sullivan frowns. He hunches over and starts piling small rocks, flat and smooth from years of river erosion, one on top of another until his structure collapses. “You were so quiet at lunch.”

I snort. “Nicky and Brant were talking enough for all of us.”

“Ah, they were just joking around,” Sullivan says, lying back on the beach, resting his palms behind his head.

Something hot and sour pools at the back of my throat. “What's so fucking funny about having your bare-assed baby pictures passed around the table like they're a bowl of potato salad?” I snarl. Little drops of spit fly out of my mouth.

Sullivan sits up and laughs. “Not
my
fault. Nicholas found one of Mom's old photo albums on the bookshelf in the rec room.”

“Didn't you even...mind?”

“Mind what?”

I blink hard. “Mind that everyone could see your bare ass!”

Sullivan cranes his neck down and around in a goofy attempt to check out his own backside. “Why would I?” he replies, grinning. “I have a nice ass. Didn't your family ever take any bare-assed baby photos of you?”

I grab a big rock off the beach, wishing it were a grenade, except it's me that might explode. I toss it far out into the river, where it lands with a loud
KERPLOP
.

Sullivan reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. “Don't be such a prude,” he snickers.

“I'm not a prude.”

“Then I guess suggesting a round of strip poker tonight wouldn't be out of the question?” Sullivan asks, his eyes bright with amusement.

Just ignore him, just ignore him, just ignore him, I tell myself.

“No? Maybe we could listen to a few Barenaked Ladies
CDS
?”

I suck air in, holding my breath as long as I can, waiting for the earth to open up and suck me down into the dirt.

“Sarah?”

“I thought you wanted to work on the puzzle tonight, Sullivan!” I growl. “Or would you rather not? Because it's your damn puzzle. I don't care if—” I stop, because I do care. No puzzle, no concert. No concert, no treasure hunt for me. “Sorry,” I mumble, because I am. I really wish I could laugh as easily as Sullivan does about being the “butt” of Brant's and Nicky's jokes.

Sullivan raises an eyebrow at me and lets out a low whistle. “Wow...are you ever an Oscar today.”

“What the hell are you talking about now?”

“An Oscar. You know?
Sesame Street
? Oscar the
Grouch
.”

I'd leave now, but I don't have the heart to rouse Judy, who's snoring away, her soft black ears flapping in the breeze. “Aren't you supposed to be hosing out the barn this afternoon?” I ask Sullivan. Maybe he'll take the hint and leave me alone.

“Actually...Mom sent me to check on you.” Sullivan blushes.

Figures. “Victoria worries too much.”

“It's a refreshing change for her to be worried about someone other than me.”

“What's she got to worry about you for?” I ask. I'm curious because Sullivan seems to me like the poster boy for normalcy, if you can get past his weird shoe fetish, his motormouth and his thing for me. And if I can get him talking about himself, maybe he'll stop pestering me with questions.

Sullivan takes in a long breath and chews on his lip. His expression reminds me of that day in the canoe, when I'd asked him a similar question about Victoria's over-protectiveness, and he'd told me to watch out for a nonexistent piece of driftwood.

But he doesn't hedge this time. “Well, you might as well know, seeing we're...you know...friends. I had cancer. Leukemia.”

I blink hard. “You did?”

Sullivan draws a tic-tac-toe board in the dirt with his finger. “First grade. With Mrs. Fenton. Don't you remember?”

“You were in first grade with me?”

He draws an
X
in the center square, solemn now. “We shared a glue stick in arts and crafts.”

“No. I always shared a glue stick with a kid named Steve.” Steve had thick, curly brown hair, a Ninja Turtle lunch box, and Disney Band-Aids on his knees and elbows almost all the time. He got a bloody nose—a real gusher—one day. The class was making Thanksgiving
turkeys out of brown lunch bags and construction paper. I remember because Steve dripped blood on my turkey. Mike Kindale got jealous. He said the blood made my turkey look like “a real turkey just after my daddy's shot it.” He wanted Steve to bleed on his paper-bag turkey too, but Mrs. Fenton rushed Steve to the office for first aid instead.

Steve never came back.

Except, it turns out, he did. Sullivan laughs. “Steve was a nickname. Short for STV. Sullivan Thomas Vickerson is too big a mouthful for any six-year-old kid.” He nudges me and motions down to his tic-tac-toe board. “Your turn.”

I draw an
O
in the top left corner. “That was
you
? God. I'm sorry. Wow.”

“Yeah, I didn't make it back to school until—”

“Grade two.” It's all coming back now. “We had Mr. Baldwin.” I was sharing glue sticks with a girl named Sylvia by then, so I'd barely noticed the skinny “new boy” with thin spiky hair and a Scooby Doo lunch box. The boy who went by the name Sullivan.

I peer at him now through my hair. He looks healthy enough to star in a breakfast cereal commercial. “You really had cancer? You're okay now, right?”

Sullivan shrugs and puts an
X
in the bottom right corner. “It's been almost ten years since my last treatment. I went into remission ahead of schedule. Never had a relapse. Probably never will. Dr. Walters says I'm one of those few lucky kids who breeze through cancer—if you can get past the unluckiness of getting cancer at all.
But tell that to my mother. If I get the sniffles or a hangnail or even just a headache, there's Mom, standing vigil. Usually by the phone, since I'm with Dad most of the year.”

“Your dad's cool about it, isn't he?” Besides ninth-grade homeroom, I'd had Mr. Vickerson for physical geography just last semester. He was a fair marker. He prepared interesting slide shows and took us on field trips to the nearby provincial park. He always wrote a cornball “joke of the day” on the board before the start of classes.

Sullivan chuckles. “Sure, he's cool. But he's
everywhere
. At school, my locker and his office are less than ten paces apart. Dad's not the hovering type. He's not at all restrictive. But he's...watchful. Like, if he misses one of my volleyball games or a drama club play or even just turns his attention elsewhere for a minute, he thinks I'm going to break out in tumors. Take your turn.”

I put an
O
in the top right corner. If I know anything, I know what it's like to have a parent who can't keep his distance.

“But you know, Sarah,” Sullivan adds, quickly drawing an
X
in the top center square to block my win, “there's an upside to having cancer too.” He rests his weight back on his hands, tilting his face up to the sun.

“Let me guess. Spoiled rotten?”

Sullivan sits back up and counts off on his fingers. “Disney World trips during elementary school. Karate and drama and soccer and drum lessons through junior high. My dad promised me a car for my high school graduation. One with a spotless safety rating, of course.”

I draw an
O
in the bottom center box. Game over. Tied. “None of that explains why they let you spend your summer hanging with juvies.”

“I live with my mother in the summer. My mother lives here in the summer. Besides, both my parents know that none of you ‘volunteers' would have been sent here if you were real...you know...”

“Criminals?”

“You aren't a criminal, Sarah.”

“Sullivan, I stole a car and crashed it into a war monument. I was underage, without a license. Isn't that reason enough to red flag me as a questionable...friend?”

“Don't be so hard on yourself. I mean, that night you crashed? It was all just an accident, right? An impulsive moment?”

Same as with my mother, it's easiest for me to just let Sullivan think whatever he wants. Let him assume that the actions that landed me at Camp Dog Gone Fun were just a one-off, maybe a fight with my mother about getting a nose ring. Or a bad reaction to Mom's growing relationship with Tanner. Normal teenage hysteria gone overboard. Gone wrong.

“Anyway,” Sullivan says, picking pebbles out of his heels, “what does any of it matter as long as whatever happened is worked out now. It is worked out now, right?”

“Sure, Sullivan.” Whatever you say.

“Good,” he says, and he leans over to kiss me.

It's weird. Until that first kiss in the boathouse a while back, I always worried that, after years of being watched,
but never touched, I'd freak if anyone ever
did
touch me. I worried that a kiss would be like a photograph, something to be taken from me.

But it seems I worried for nothing. Sullivan gives kisses; he doesn't steal them.

In fact, kissing seems to be as good a diversion as any from Sullivan's nosy questions. Another bonus: I notice that Sullivan keeps his eyes shut tight while he kisses me; he's no pervert who needs to watch. Doesn't a guy deserve points if he's willing to kiss a girl he knows is covered in dog hair and drool?

“Maybe sharing a glue stick back in first grade was just the start of something,” Sullivan remarks when we break for air.

“Maybe.” But what sort of something, I wonder. And I don't want to know. I've been trying so hard to ignore the white-water river of electricity that runs through me when Sullivan kisses me. Because, realistically, how much of myself can I actually share with him? Even if I didn't have secret motives for agreeing to help him with his puzzle, at what point would my past interfere?

Never mind about all that now, I tell myself. Concentrate on Sullivan tickling your upper lip with his tongue. Enjoy this while you can. Until the Ratgut concert, when you ditch him at the gates to go picture hunting, and he never kisses you, never speaks to you, again.

That's the plan.

I'm such a bitch. I'd never use Sullivan—use anyone, even creepy Brant—like this if finding the Polaroids wasn't the only thing that really mattered in my life.

Judy lumbers to her feet, stretches and shakes half the beach from her thick coat all over us. Sullivan and I recoil, laughing and jumping up, shaking gravel from our own hair and spitting dirt onto the beach.

All three of us plunk back down on the beach to recuperate. “So...want to make it official?” Sullivan asks, nudging me playfully in the ribs. “Want to be my girlfriend?”

I run my fingers through Judy's damp tail hair, untangling it to prevent mats, and turn Sullivan's question over—and over and over, like a dozen sizzling blueberry pancakes— in my mind. Maybe I could handle it, being someone's girlfriend. Short-term, obviously. Sort of like a social science experiment. Romance with an expiration date.