Stick (17 page)

“What?” I said.

“Eggs.                            Colored eggs.                       All over in the sand.”

Dahlia came out of the kitchen. She laughed. “You can't             go anywhere till you do the              egg hunt.” Then she added, apologetically, “They don't

                                                                                hide too well in sand, I guess.”

I went out onto the walk. Dahlia's yard was littered, everywhere, with colored eggs.    

It was beautiful in the morning light.

“This is the coolest and most amazing Easter egg hunt ever,” I said. Then I said something that just kind of fell out of my mouth: “I love you, Dahlia.”

Bosten and I hurriedly changed into our wetsuits, then we went out into the yard with the twins and Aunt Dahlia to look for eggs.

And sometimes

we pretended

that we couldn't see them,

just to make Dahlia

stay out there longer with us.

Dahlia let us phone Washington that evening. Not to talk to Mom and Dad. I wanted to talk to Emily, and Bosten wanted to hear Paul's voice. I think he wanted to test things and see how Buck was feeling about him, now that they'd been apart for a week.

I went first.

As usual, Mrs. Lohman answered the phone.

I could tell right away from the heaviness in her voice that she knew about my parents splitting up. But she didn't really know how things were. Mom and Dad always seemed so perfect.

Everything always seemed so perfect.

“Oh my God, Stick! Are you okay?”

“Uh. I'm fine, Mrs. Lohman. And I'm really looking forward to visiting with you tomorrow.”

“Oh, Stick.”

She sounded like she was about to cry.

“I hope you know that if there's anything you need—”

“Um. May I please speak with Emily?”

“Sure, baby. We'll see you tomorrow.”

“I'll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Lohman.”

Dahlia sat at the table. She was listening, but I didn't care. There was nothing I had to hide from her, and she made me feel almost normal most of the times.

“Stick?”

“Hi, Em.”

“How's California?”

At least she knew how to talk to me and not make me feel like I was in a hospital bed, dying.

“Oh my God, Em, it is so incredible here. Bosten and I learned how to surf. And we're pretty good at it. Well, Bosten's better than me.”

“Does your
aunt surf
?”

I laughed.

It was like that. And Aunt Dahlia never once made me feel like my time was limited, or that telephones were not healthy things for boys. But I didn't want her to have to pay too much for long distance, either, and I knew Bosten was patiently waiting to give Paul Buckley a call. So I talked to Emily for about five minutes; and, in that time, I realized how much I missed her and needed to see her. And for the first time in my life, I honestly thought about kissing her. Not just thought about it, I wanted to.

On the mouth.

Like Kim taught me.

When I hung up, I noticed that Bosten had been standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. I winked at him, then took Dahlia by the hand and said, “Hey, Dahlia. Do you want to go for a walk with me?”

And Dahlia's eyes lit up like I was giving her a present or something. She stood right up and said, “Should          we wait              for your brother?”

I said, “No. It's just me and you.”

*   *   *

“Is       Emily     your special friend?”

We walked out toward the jetty. The sun had gone down, but the sky was pale on the horizon, and everything seemed so clear.

“Yes. She's my best friend. Well, besides Bosten. Or you.”

“It's better, I think, to have a       ‘best friend' than a      girlfriend,” Dahlia said. “Girlfriends are your friends because they're          girls.  But best friends are people you can share everything with and not be afraid they'll leave you with less.”

“That's how it is,” I said. “Exactly.”

It was almost like she knew about me making out with Kim.

“Dahlia? There's something I need to tell you. I want to say that I am very sorry for how mean I was to you that first day. I didn't know. And I didn't think you, or anybody else in the world, wanted me and Bosten around them, anyway. So. Uh. I am sorry.”

Then Dahlia hugged me so hard and just squeezed me. And nobody had ever really held me like that before in my life. She stroked my hair and said,

“What am I going to do

without you boys around?

What am I going to do?”

*   *   *

Kim kissed Bosten
and me at the airport, but it wasn't a kiss like I got from her the afternoon we went to C Street. It was a sad kiss, because it said good-bye, the same way Evan's hand did in mine when we shook.

She and Evan rode with us in Dahlia's car. I was glad for that, not just for me and Bosten, but because I didn't want Aunt Dahlia to be lonely after we left.

I squeezed Dahlia so hard when we had to leave, and then me and Bosten just ran down the boarding gate without looking back. I didn't want to look at her again because I was starting to cry—we all were—and I felt like something inside me was getting killed.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

EMILY

It wasn't a long enough flight
from Los Angeles to Seattle to make the sadness leave my head, or to stop thinking about all the
nevers
that seemed to pile up: never, on never, on never, like mountains in front of me.

Just before the plane landed, Bosten punched my shoulder and said,

“Snap out of          it.”

I punched him back. “
You
snap out of it.”

“I know.”

“What did Paul say last night?”

I already knew the answer, could tell by how relieved my brother seemed to be acting when Dahlia and I came back from our walk.

“Eh. He said     he broke up with his brand-new      girlfriend.”

“That experiment didn't last long, did it?”

Bosten smiled and shook his head.   “Nope.”

*   *   *

“Oh       good God!
     Look at      you two!” Mrs. Buckley was practically in tears when she saw us at the airport. I fired a quick glance at Paul and could see in his eyes how much he wanted to hold my brother.

And I thought, why doesn't he? That's so dumb.

“You are so       dark! You boys look completely new!” she said. “Look at your hair!”

I guess we didn't realize how much being out on the water all day had changed our appearances. We were tan and healthy-looking; and until Mrs. Buckley had said it, I didn't really notice how much lighter Bosten's hair had gotten.

And now we were back home in cave-salamander land.

Where Mom and Dad lived.

*   *   *

Besides giving me a boner
every time I saw her, Mrs. Buckley drove just about the coolest car imaginable: a brand-new white and blue Trans Am, complete with air-intake, and a big bird-thing painted across the hood.

Bosten and I stuffed our bags in the trunk, and then Paul said, “I'll let                        Stick    sit up front. He's tallest,     anyway.”

I didn't think I was the tallest, but I wasn't going to plead to squeeze into the backseat, either. And, anyway, there was always the chance that his mom would brush my leg with her fingers when shifting gears.

When we got to the other side of the Puget Sound, Mrs. Buckley asked if we needed to stop by our house and pick up any clothes or things, and Bosten and I both said no at the same time.

I turned around and looked through the gap between the bucket seats.

Paul had his hand on Bosten's knee; and my brother's arm was stretched across the top of the seat so his fingers touched the back of Paul's neck It was innocent enough, I guess, and there was no way Mrs. Buckley could tell what was going on, anyway.

They seemed really happy, and I was glad for that. But maybe I stared at them a little too long, because Paul fired a vicious dirty look that turned me around.

*   *   *

Everyone got out of the car
when we arrived at the Lohman house. It was so close to our home, I could practically smell the cigarette smoke drifting over from Dad's chair, on the other side of the highway.

Mrs. Lohman threw open the door to the mudroom and stood on the porch. Then Emily squeezed her way around her mother and waved at me.

I was so glad to see her, so relieved to stop moving, being shuffled from one place to another, and sitting down for that entire day. I put my face inside my Sex Wax T-shirt and smelled.

“What         the hell        are you doing?” Bosten said.

“I still smell like the Strand. Like Dahlia's house.”

Bosten put his nose into my neck. “You        do.”

I wanted it that way.

I purposely didn't take a shower after the last time we surfed together. There was still sand in my hair, too.

Mrs. Lohman said, “Stick!      And just in time for        dinner, too!”

“I'll be right there, Mrs. Lohman!”

Bosten came around and lifted my suitcase from the trunk of the car. He put it down next to my feet.

He looked sad. Paul looked anxious. And Mrs. Buckley looked like she always did.

Perfect.

I hugged my brother. Except for that time when he was in ninth grade and ran away from home for four days, we had never stayed in separate houses for more than just single-night sleepovers, and, in our family, those were rare occurrences.

“I love you, Bosten.”

“Love you,          Sticker. I'll see you Saturday.”

“Yeah. See you.”

“Hey,” he said as I started to turn away. “That was the               best.”

“Sure was.”

My suitcase felt especially heavy as I walked up the steps toward Mrs. Lohman and Emily. Bosten climbed in the back, and Paul got in the front seat next to his mom. In an instant, that fancy sports car roared away up the road toward Pilot Point.

*   *   *

Just about the first thing
I had to do when I got inside the house, after taking off my new shoes, was explain to Emily and her parents what the Sex Wax shirt was all about. Mr. and Mrs. Lohman didn't approve of it at first, but when I told them everything I could about surfing, they seemed to accept it more easily.

“I wouldn't recommend you         try wearing that around     school, Stick,” Mr. Lohman said.

“Or my dad.” I tried to smile. It was a grim smile, a bad news smile.

I didn't really want to think of school or Dad at the moment.

And anyway, I didn't get what the hang-up was on a
word
. Evan told me that one time he'd worn his Sex Wax shirt to Disneyland, and they wouldn't let him in unless he turned it inside out, so nobody could read the word “Sex.” They said it was offensive. Bosten and I had never been to Disneyland, but after hearing that from Evan, I thought that maybe they had rules about the color of your underwear, too—just like Dad.

But before we sat down to dinner, I opened my suitcase on the floor of the Lohmans' mudroom and pulled out the hockey puck–shaped pack of Sex Wax I had, just so they could smell it, and see what surf wax was used for.

I showed them my wetsuit, too. But I didn't tell them about peeing in it.

I felt like an explorer, coming back from Africa with rare and exotic trophies.

Mr. Lohman said Sex Wax smelled so good he wanted to take a bite out of it for dessert.

He laughed when I told him how I'd tried that one time, but I almost threw up, and then it took about half a day to get the wax off the back of my teeth.

*   *   *

In all the years
I'd known the Lohmans, it never came up about how the boys of the McClellan family didn't sleep in pajamas. Well, it didn't, that is, until Mrs. Lohman and Emily walked into the guest bedroom to tell me good night. Emily's mom carried a glass of milk and some cookies for me.

That's when they found out about the “no pajamas” thing, I guess. Because I was standing there, wearing absolutely nothing more than a pair of white (of course) briefs, about to climb into my own, private guest bed that smelled so nice, just like the conditioner Emily had used on my hair that day we took a bath together.

And Mrs. Lohman looked like she suddenly discovered a school of live electric eels in her panties. She said, “Oh my gosh!”

She then immediately dropped the cookies and the glass of milk all over the floor, while her arms became frantically occupied, flailing like she was drowning or something, pushing Emily behind her so she wouldn't be able to look at me.

My feet were soaked from the milk. There was broken glass and soggy cookies all over the floor, and Mrs. Lohman turned so red, holding Emily behind her with both her hands like she was protecting her daughter from a vampire.

“Stick!       I      am       so sorry!”

Horrified, trying to keep her eyes averted, she began backing out through the doorway.

“It's no big deal, Mrs. Lohman,” I said.

I bent down and started picking up pieces of cookie, glass, and plate.

It really was no big deal, but I wasn't about to tell Mrs. Lohman that her daughter and I had seen each other completely naked before.

Like Emily said, her mom probably wouldn't understand.

Emily giggled.