Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 11:51:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Robin Eagleson <robineagleson@yahoo.com>
Subject: Luckiest Summer Part Two

The Luckiest Summer
Robin Eagleson
robineagleson@yahoo.com

Part Two

I slept late the next day and might have slept even later if it wasn't for
the phone ringing.  I just knew it would be Dad finally, so I tried to rip
my covers off and bound out of bed, but got caught up in them and fell out
of it and hit the floor loudly.  I stumbled up to my feet and raced into
the kitchen, grabbing the cordless.

"Hello?" I panted into the receiver heavily.

It wasn't Dad.  Instead it was Robbie, one of my friends from school,
wanting to know if I would be interested in coming over to his house for
the day.  I started to say yes, but then remembered Brad had told me he
would be by today to swim.  I didn't want to be gone when he came over,
because then he might never come over again.  I already knew Robbie, so I
figured it was better to offend him than Brad.

"I can't," I said.  "I've already got plans."  At least I didn't have to
lie to him.  He wanted to know just what, exactly, those plans entailed.
"My neighbor is coming over to go swimming later," I said.  He wanted to
know since when I was friends with my neighbor.  "Since yesterday," I
answered.  "I have to go mow my lawn," I lied, tired of answering his
questions.  He told me he had just found out a girl in our grade had a
crush of titanic proportions on me.  "How did you find out?" I asked
doubtfully.  He said he'd been talking to a friend of hers the day before
and my name came up, because she knew Robbie and I were friends.  "Are you
gonna tell me who it is?" I asked.  He said only if he could come over and
swim.  "Deal," I said, caving in.  "But your mom will have to bring you
because I'm home alone until five."  We agreed on two and I hung up.

I was feeling slightly more cheerful as I hung up the receiver, even though
it hadn't been Dad.  The day was shaping up to be a fun one, and I'd even
be getting to hang out with Brad some more.  This almost offset the fact
that I apparently had no father now.  Still, I was happy enough so that I
was even humming a tune under my breath as I walked over to the
refrigerator to make myself a sandwich (maybe turkey) when I saw a note
posted on the door for me.

Zach (it read): Please mow the lawn this afternoon.  Eat pizza rolls for
lunch.  Will bring home dinner.  Love you, Mom.  I groaned and threw the
note away.  How was I supposed to know when I made up my story about having
to mow the lawn to get off the phone with Robbie that it would actually
come true?  It was my punishment for lying, I decided.  Sulking now, I
decided it'd be best to get the mowing out of the way before it got too
hot.  It was already nearly noon.

I pulled off my t-shirt, threw it into the hallway (it always made Mom mad
when I "used the entire house as my hamper"), and went out to the garage,
clicking the button so the door would open.  I could feel the heat ambush
me the second I was in contact with the outside world, and it was enough to
make me want to run back inside for cover.  Bravely, I ignored it and
advanced on the lawn mower, a rusty red demon that had been haunting me for
the better part of two years now.  True, it was the only real chore I had,
but it was a rough one.  I checked to make sure there was enough gas in it
first just as Dad had taught me, and then pushed it into the driveway,
taking a quick look at my street.  It was quiet and mostly unpopulated; no
one wanted to be outside when it was a hundred degrees, and neither did I.

With no small amount of caution, I yanked the chord back and listened for
the telltale sign of the roaring engine.  When I had first started mowing
at around ten or eleven years old, I had pulled the chord back recklessly
and it had whipped back downwards equally as recklessly, cutting me on the
neck on its crooked descent.  Just the memory brought my hand to the tender
spot, and I kept it there momentarily.  Then I started my tedious work.

About halfway through I saw Brad.  He was backing out of his driveway,
probably heading to work.  He had been staring right at me when I noticed
his car, and I waved to him happily.  He gave me some kind of strange
greeting with his hand, some kind of wave that I wasn't familiar with.  It
looked like his index and middle fingers were straight and pressed
together, and his ring finger was bent downwards while his pinky finger
also extended straight out at the end of his hand.  I made a mental note to
ask him about it later.

My entire body was dripping with sweat by the time I finally finished doing
the circles around the big oak tree in the yard; I always saved that part
for last.  I would probably have to do the backyard over the weekend, but
there was much less of it on that side of the house because of the pool,
and Mom didn't care as much about it because it couldn't be seen by people
who drove by.

I slumped inside the house, snatched the half full pitcher of cherry
Kool-Aid from its residence on the top shelf of the refrigerator, and
guzzled it with a desperation only half an hour of lawn mowing on a day
when the temperature reached triple digits could cause.  My eyes watering
from the tart sweetness but my throat feeling considerably less parched, I
staggered to the bathroom for a shower, still feeling slightly dizzy from
being under the sun without any shelter.  The oak tree was the only shade
in the yard, and naturally there hadn't been a single cloud in the sky the
whole time I'd been out there, so the sun, although it must have been
billions of miles up there, felt as if it were taking a trip dangerously
close to the ground just to torment me.

I gave myself a passing glance in the mirror after I turned on the shower
to warm up the water.  God, I really was skinny.  I even tried flexing my
arms and tightening my stomach to see if I could make myself look bigger,
but there was nothing there but skin.  I really had developed a pretty good
tan already, though, and I personally thought that if you could get past
how skinny I was, you might not think I was too bad looking.  I had a
pretty standard combination of brown hair and brown eyes; my hair was
normally pretty dark brown, but the summer sun had lightened it just a bit.
I hadn't gotten it cut in over three months, so it was starting to get kind
of floppy and wavy.  I really didn't mind it when it got longer, but Mom
usually started threatening to cut it herself eventually if I wouldn't
agree to have an appointment made somewhere, and what that meant was she
would bust out her shears and buzz my hair nearly to the scalp, which
really didn't do a lot for me other than make my ears stick out.  I had to
shake out of my shorts and boxers; they were clinging to me worse than a
swimsuit would after being in a pool.  Once you got to my waist, there
really was nothing to look at, so I didn't even bother checking myself out
when I was naked, even though I was admittedly tempted today with all the
talk about a girl having a crush on me.  Plus, I would be going into eighth
grade in a few months, and as hard as it was to believe, surely puberty was
lurking somewhere in the shadows waiting to bestow a few rudimentary,
welcome changes on me.  All I knew was that my dick couldn't possibly be
done growing, or at least I didn't think it was.

My shower was quick.  The hot water was not very welcoming on my already
overheated flesh, and as soon as I had ridded my body of the troubling
sweat that had formulated in seemingly every possible crevice and lathered
my hair with shampoo, I stepped out and started to dry off.  That was when
the phone rang again.  Because of my eternal optimism, I was once again
sure it would be Dad, and my heart immediately sped up.  I wrapped the
towel snugly around my waist and skipped to the living room.  It was only
Robbie again, informing me that his mom had to go run errands and she was
going to be dropping him off now instead of waiting until two.  I must have
sounded disappointed to him, but in reality it had nothing to do with his
early arrival.

I was making my way back to the bathroom to put on some clothes when the
doorbell rang.  It was rapidly becoming obvious to me that I was perhaps
the most popular person in the world; at least today, anyway.  Again I got
my hopes up about who my interrupter might be, thinking it was Brad, and
again I was disappointed.  Swinging open the front door revealed that it
wasn't Brad standing on the porch, but rather Tyler, his annoying little
half-brother that couldn't have been more his opposite.  He had probably
come over for a Madden rematch, which I would never be willing to grant
him, incidentally.

"Hi," he said, looking me over and giving me a long, low whistle.  I
suddenly remembered I still had just a towel draped across my waist and
blushed.  It honestly hadn't occurred to me before he teased me; answering
the door this way had been an entirely innocent mistake.  "Brad told me you
were swimming today, and I was wondering if I could come."

He didn't wait for me to answer, though, instead stepping into the foyer on
his own and standing right in front of me, now on the same floor level as
me.  Again it struck me how tall he was for a kid who was going into sixth
grade.  He was wearing shoes, whereas I wasn't, and with that disadvantage
we were very nearly eye to eye; I had perhaps an inch and a half on him.  I
really needed to consider growing a little.

"Um, sure," I finally answered, backing away from him.  "I've got to wait
for my friend to get here first, though.  Let me go get dressed."

"I'll be back, then," he said, appearing very excited I had said yes.  He
started to turn and leave.  "Oh yeah, another thing," he added, now back on
the porch.  "I have a friend over today.  I can bring him too, right?" he
asked.

"Yeah, fine," I said, disappearing into the hallway to grab some clothes in
my room.  As soon as I heard the door squeak as it closed behind him, I had
an inspiration and ran back to the kitchen, still in the towel.  I picked
up the phone and hurriedly dialed Robbie's number.  I recognized his voice
on the other end.  "You haven't left yet," I said, almost as if to assure
myself of this very obvious fact.  "Okay, well anyway, can you bring your
brother?"

"What?  No!" Robbie answered, sounding horrified.  "Are you insane?"
Robbie's brother was very nearly the same age as Tyler, and I assumed, very
nearly the same age as Tyler's friend, too.

"Just trust me!" I shouted into the phone.  "It's not my fault, but it
looks like my neighbor's little brother will be here too, and he's bringing
his friend.  Maybe if you bring your brother the three of them can keep
each other busy enough to where they'll leave us alone."

"What makes you think three little kids would be less likely to bother us
than two little kids?" he asked, sounding skeptical.

"Just trust me," I repeated.  "If there are three of them they'll be too
busy chasing each other around to notice us.  The third party is crucial,"
I said, smiling triumphantly over incorporating a word into a sentence I
had just heard out of Brad's mouth last night.  I still don't think he was
convinced, but he agreed to invite his little brother along, which as it
turned out would probably be doing his mom a favor, allowing her to run her
errands solo.

Having set everything up accordingly now, I raced back to my bedroom and
closed the door, letting the towel drop off me finally.  I fished through
my dresser, hunting for my swim trunks, and eventually succeeded in finding
them after uprooting the entire contents of the drawer.  Mom would have a
fit if she saw all the clothes I had strewn about the house if I didn't
clean it up first, but I didn't particularly feel like worrying about it
right now.


My plan really did work pretty well.  Tyler's friend, Jared, was nowhere
near as annoying as Tyler, and I'd always gotten along alright with
Robbie's little brother, Ian.  I gave the three of them the Styrofoam pool
noodles you were supposed to use for floating and such, but they mostly
used them for jousting instead, and they were far too busy knocking each
other off their respective air mattresses to pay much attention to Robbie
and I, which was good, since we had an important matter to discuss.

"So are you going to tell me or not?" I asked, taking a break from my laps
to lean against the shallow end of the pool next to Robbie.  Robbie was
tall and blond; probably not quite as tall for his age as Tyler was for
his, but several inches taller than me nonetheless, although he didn't seem
to have hit that sudden bump in the road that abruptly turned one of your
friends into an adult out of nowhere.  He still sounded like a kid, and
when he'd changed inside my room I had caught a brief glimpse of his
private area, which appeared very similar to mine.  We'd changed together
so many times I usually didn't even notice.

"If I tell you, you can't tell her I told you," he cautioned, reaching out
and violently shoving the air mattress that had been floating slowly over
to him; it was the one that contained his brother, who yelped in protest
when he was nearly thrown off it from the force.  "I told you: stay away
from us and I might not drown you!" he shouted as the mattress slowly
drifted back to the other end of the pool with the younger boys.

"I won't tell," I said impatiently, absent-mindedly adjusting my swim
shorts underneath the water.  "I just want to know who it is."

"Okay," he said, looking at me closely to make sure I could be trusted.
"But I'm warning you, she's probably going to call you soon and ask you
out, and you can't let on that you saw it coming."

"Ask me out?" I said, scrunching up my nose.  I wasn't sure what that
meant.  I mean, some of the boys in my grade had girls they were "going
out" with, but to be honest I never really understood what that entailed.
When you're thirteen years old you can't really "go out" with someone, can
you?  "What do you mean?" I asked stupidly.  Robbie giggled at me.

"It means you've got a girlfriend, douche bag.  What do you think it means?
Anyway, I think you'll say yes.  She's pretty hot."  At that, he started
swirling the water with his hands and making an almost intentional point to
wait until I pressed him for more details, namely who the hell it was he
was talking about.

"So tell me already!" I whined, starting to get nervous now that the name,
after all this fanfare, was going to be revealed.  Robbie flashed me a big
smile, and then swam away from me.  "Asshole!" I shouted after him, not
moving from my spot.

"I'm just going to swim a lap real fast," he called back over his shoulder.
I watched him as he disappeared underneath the surface briefly, kicking his
way to the opposite end, a trail of bubbles following him.  He reappeared
as soon as he was underneath the mattress Jared had been lying on,
completely uprooting the boy from his position and turning the mattress on
its side.  A full scale riot broke out, all three of the smaller boys
attacking him simultaneously wielding their pool noodles.  He made short
work of his brother, disarming him quickly by ripping the noodle out of
hand and dunking his head under the water before rounding on Jared and
slapping him in the face with it.  After taking possession of that noodle,
too, he turned to Tyler and went at him with a noodle in each hand.

"Zach, help us!" Tyler pleaded with me as I watched motionless from the
other end, admittedly enjoying the show.  I couldn't resist an opportunity
to take out some of my frustration over Robbie withholding the name he
promised he'd give me, however, so I quickly swam over and leapt on
Robbie's back, trying to wrestle one of the noodles out of his hand.  He
was much stronger than me, though, and I never would have succeeded had the
three younger boys not all pounced back into the foray.  With my help we
were an unstoppable team; a quartet of doom for Robbie, and after being
slapped with three noodles at the same time and thoroughly splashed with
water for nearly five full minutes, he finally accepted his defeat and
called off the battle.

"Tell me," I said to him simply when the frenzy had died down, grabbing his
arm and holding his gaze meaningfully.

"Let go," he laughed, shaking his arm from the grip and pulling himself out
of the pool, where he made a blatant display of repositioning his crotch as
he walked around the outside edge to the diving board.  Frustrated, I swam
in his direction and glared at him the whole time.  "Okay, okay," he
laughed again when he saw how impatient I had gotten.  "It's Nadia Combs."
Without waiting for my reply he leapt off the diving board and made a
tremendous splash into the water.

"Nadia Combs likes me?" I asked, dumbfounded.  He surfaced above the water
right in front of me and shrugged, as if to say that's what the word was.
"I don't even think I've talked to her before."

"So?" he asked.  "She's blonde and she has a nice pair."  He giggled
fiendishly.  "Don't you think she's hot?"

"Yeah, I guess so," I admitted.  "I don't think I've had a class with her
though.  How can she like me?"

"Who cares?" he asked, looking perplexed.  "If you don't go out with her
you're a queer, and I'm going to make fun of you forever.  It's not like
you have a girlfriend.  Besides, she told Rachel Evans you did have a class
together.  I don't know, like PE or something.  She must have thought you
were hot in shorts."

Just as I was about to continue my stream of stupid questions, Brad
appeared in the corner of the yard through the gate that I had the presence
of mind to unlock earlier.  He was not dressed in swimming attire, but
rather in his work clothes, it appeared.  He was carrying a few boxes of
the company product, though, which drew a lot of attention from the five
starving boys in the pool.

"Holy shit, I didn't realize you were having the entire fucking city over,"
he said to me when he'd ascended the stairs up to the pool foundation.  "I
only brought two pizzas, so I guess you guys will have to fight it out," he
shrugged, setting the boxes down on the ground next to a few lawn chairs.

Naturally, Robbie was the quickest out of the pool, and the most
aggressive, so he had claimed an entire box before anyone else could get to
the pizza.  Tyler and the two other boys were close behind, whereas I was
more interested in Brad than the pizza.  Besides, I still had the cheese
pizza leftover that I had stormed off into my room with after arguing with
my sister from last night, although admittedly an entire night of sitting
out wouldn't have done it any favors.

"Are you going to swim?" I asked him as he settled into one of the lawn
chairs and leaned back in it, his eyes fashionably protected from the sun
by his stylish sunglasses.  He took off his hat and ran his hand quickly up
and down his closely buzzed blond hair.

"Yeah, probably," he said lazily, staring off into the distance, leaning
back all the way now with his arms crossed behind his head.  "I might just
sit here and bask for a little while, you know?  Work on my bronze skin
tone."

"That's what my mom does," Robbie said, bringing the pizza box he'd claimed
for himself over to us and settling in the chair next to Brad.  "Whenever
we go to a beach or a pool or something she just lays in the sun the whole
time.  I'm like, `Mom, what the hell are you doing?  Why would you rather
just lay here instead of swim?'"  Of course I knew Robbie would say no such
thing to his mother, but I didn't point it out.

"Girls like tans," Brad grunted simply.  "And I'm not tan."  Robbie
grinned.

"Maybe that's why Nadia likes you, Zach.  Maybe she wants you for your sexy
tan."  Brad gave me an inquisitive look out of the corner of his eye and I
blushed.  Robbie turned back to Brad.  "Do you get free pizza all the
time?"

"Every now and then, yeah.  I only got those today because this guy called
in and said he wanted ten pepperoni pizzas and then he never came in to
pick them up.  So we split them up and each took a few home."

"You mean people actually do prank pizza places?" Robbie asked.  "I didn't
think kids made prank phone calls anymore.  Didn't that die out back when
they invented television?"

"I wish," Brad said.  "We get prank calls all the god damn time.  People
think it's funny.  I think we get it worse because we're not a real chain."
He turned and looked at me.  "Who's your friend, Zach?" he asked.

"Oh," I replied, not really wanting to introduce them to each other.  Brad
was my friend, not Robbie's.  "This is Robbie," I said flatly.  "And that
kid over there that isn't your brother or your brother's friend is Robbie's
little brother, Ian.  And this is Brad," I said, turning to Robbie
reluctantly.

"Good to meet you, dude," Robbie said.  "I didn't know Zach had any cool
neighbors."

"I don't," I grumbled, interrupting.  "He's only here for the summer."  But
Robbie probably didn't even hear me, as he had already eaten half the pizza
and leapt back into the pool, picking up a stray noodle and challenging all
the youngsters to a duel.  I took the opportunity to seat myself in the
vacated chair next to Brad.  He had sat up and removed his sunglasses,
putting them neatly in a pile alongside his hat and cell phone.  I watched
him as he raised his arms and pulled his red work shirt off, throwing it in
the heap.  "You are kind of pale," I giggled, noticing how much the
whiteness of his torso contrasted with his arms and legs.

"No shit," he grinned at me.  He was definitely in shape, though.  There
were subtle ridges lining his stomach, and his chest was built.  "Your
friend's really active," he observed.  I was pleased to hear him refer to
Robbie as "your friend".  As long as he continued to think of him as my
friend and nothing more, there was no danger of him deciding Robbie was
cooler than me or anything.

"He's kind of crazy," I acknowledged, watching as he put Jared in a
headlock while Tyler pounded on his back.  Ian, tired of all the splashing
about, was still sitting next to the food, his legs folded Indian-style
underneath him as he took a careful bite of his pepperoni pizza and chewed
gingerly, his sun-bleached blond hair almost a glowing white underneath the
sun.  It was funny how little the present brothers had anything in common
with their respective sibling.

I watched the trio wrestle it out for fifteen minutes, just enjoying
sitting beside Brad until he got up and joined them in the pool, leaving me
alone with Ian.  I guess Brad didn't mind getting his khaki shorts wet;
they were now submerged in the water as he waded into the middle where the
boys were fighting.  The tips of his green boxers were plainly visible at
the top of his shorts.  He immediately snatched Robbie off his feet as soon
as he got to him, surprising him and forcing him to emit a squeal.  The
younger boys laughed triumphantly, as Robbie had finally met his match.

Slowly, an undeniable wave of jealousy coursed through me as I watched them
wrestle, Robbie a helpless feather for Brad to toss around.  Before long
all the boys were taking turns climbing into Brad's arms and seeing how far
he could catapult them into the deep end.  Even Ian, previously
uninterested in the activities, had gotten back in the pool for this, and
he seemed honored when the spot he landed in was the farthest of anyone so
far.  It wasn't surprising, since he was only ten and the smallest of all
the boys.

"I'm gonna throw up if you keep tossing me," I heard Robbie plead as he
struggled to escape Brad's iron grip and climb out of the pool.  He very
nearly made it, swinging one foot out of the water and onto the side of the
cement before Brad hooked his arm around his waist and brought him back
into the pool with a splash.  I didn't understand why watching them filled
me with so much dread, but I was frozen, unable to move and unwilling to
join the fun.  There was another scream of delight as Robbie was thrown yet
again, this time as far as he'd been thrown yet.  He took advantage of
landing far away from Brad by climbing quickly out of the pool and sticking
his tongue out at him as he walked around towards me and plopped down,
dripping wet into the chair Brad been sitting in.

"Why are you sitting over here, dork?" he asked me, oblivious to my glum
demeanor.  "You should let Brad throw you.  It's so much fun!  Kind of like
a free ride at a water park."

"No thanks," I said coldly, still not sure why I felt so bothered by it.

"Let's go inside and watch TV," he replied, once again completely unaware
that I was now in a bad mood.  Before I could tell him I didn't feel like
it, he had announced to everyone that we were all going inside to watch TV.
Willingly enough, the boys bounded out of the pool and stampeded in the
house behind Robbie, leaving Brad in the pool by himself.

"Aren't you coming?" I asked, reluctantly getting up from my chair.  He
slowly made his way to the front of the pool and climbed up the ladder.

"Jesus," he said when he walked by the pizza boxes and saw that there was
almost nothing left.  "I didn't even see them eat it.  Did they inhale?"  I
didn't answer, mostly because I didn't know.  He turned a charming smile on
me.  "I had a feeling Robbie wouldn't be so tough if I got my hands on
him," he said.  My heart sank.  He was referring to him by his name now.
It was over; we weren't going to be friends anymore because he'd already
decided my friend was cooler than me.  Silently, I waited for him to gather
up his things, sling his shirt over his shoulder, and then I walked in with
him, even though I knew he didn't like me anymore.

Robbie had gotten all the boys a towel out of my bathroom by the time we
got in the living room, and they were sprawled all over the place, taking
up the floor and sofa, shirtless, sun-burned, wet little hellions filling
up the living room.  It was a quarter to five.  I knew my mom would be
surprised to come home and find the house so full.  I went back to the
bathroom to grab a few more towels for me and Brad, and then settled into
the recliner, the only available spot.

"Hey Zach, can we get drinks?" Tyler asked me, rolling over off his stomach
and turning around to face me.  I shrugged to indicate I didn't care, and
he jumped up and ran to the kitchen, followed closely by Jared.  Brad
approached the couch and nudged Ian over, pressing him against his brother,
who promptly pushed him back over to Brad.  Ian, who at some point seemed
to have developed a bond with Brad in between eating pizza and getting
thrown in the air across the pool, settled wordlessly into Brad's lap.  If
Brad thought it a peculiar development, he didn't let it show on his face,
which he kept perfectly neutral.  Again I felt a stab of jealousy, although
admittedly I had no desire to seat myself on Brad's lap.  At least, I was
pretty sure I didn't.

Mom was early.  I heard the garage door a few minutes before five, and I
braced myself.  I hoped she wouldn't come in looking as miserable as she
had the previous few days.  I didn't want the emotional hell my family was
going through to register with any of the guests.  The only one that knew
anything of our circumstances was Brad, and I wanted it to stay that way.
Of the boys in the room, the only one who showed any interest towards the
door my mom would be coming in was Brad.  The others had their collective
attention focused squarely on the TV, which Robbie had immediately put on
MTV.

"Goodness!" Mom said when she stepped into the foyer.  "So many boys I've
never seen before," she observed, coming into the living room and setting
the McDonald's she'd brought home on the dining room table.  "I'm afraid I
didn't bring food for you all," she smiled.  Her eyes didn't have that
dark, swollen look today, probably because she hadn't waited up all night
for Jesse last night.  It also might have meant she hadn't been crying,
which was a plus.  I was relived that she passed for her normal self, at
least on the outside.

"That's okay," Robbie, just about the only one who knew my mom, said
affably.  "Brad already fed us pizza.  We stole all your towels and drank
all your soda, though," he grinned devilishly.

"I would expect nothing less from you, Robert," she sighed jokingly.
"Let's see, I know you, and I know your brother Ian," she said, glancing at
the small blond boy settled in Brad's lap.  "You must be Brad?" she asked,
finally speaking to Brad, who had been making eye contact and waiting
patiently.

"Yep," he agreed politely, throwing Ian out of his lap and getting to his
feet to shake her hand and make a good impression.  "I live next door to
you guys now, at least for the summer."

"So you're the neighbor?" Mom asked, remembering that I had spent pretty
much the entire day with him yesterday.

"Me and my brother Tyler," he said, turning and pointing out his brother on
the floor, who was sipping from his Coke can and resting on his elbows.

"Well, thank you for supervising the boys," she said, as if she could
figure out no other reason why a clearly older kid would be around us.
"And thank you for feeding them.  We don't have a lot of food around the
house right now," she said apologetically.

"Oh, it's not a problem.  I got the pizza for free from my work," he
explained with a dismissive wave of his hand.  He turned and pulled Tyler
from the floor.  "Listen, I'm really glad to meet you," he said to her,
"but me and Tyler have to go meet up with my Dad for dinner, and I've got
to take his friend home first," he said, giving her his most dashing of
smiles, his perfectly whitened teeth gleaming.  He scooped up his
belongings and said bye to us all, pulling a reluctant Tyler alongside him.
Jared followed closely behind.  I hated Tyler more than ever watching them
leave together, wishing it was I who could call Brad my older brother.  A
stupid little kid like that didn't deserve him, anyway.

Mom, sensing it would be easier just to settle into the living room with
us, put my chicken nuggets and fries in front of me and settled onto the
couch next to Ian and Robbie, where she forced the boys into small talk,
continually making Robbie assure her that they weren't hungry, and she
really didn't need to worry about cooking them anything.  I took dainty
bites of my chicken.  It was funny; I used to love chicken, but ever since
Dad had left that's all Mom had been getting for me, and it was quickly
becoming forever linked with the incident, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to
stand it at all after another week.

"Thank you for mowing the lawn, honey," Mom said, turning her attention to
me finally.  I grunted in reply, and that's when she realized I wasn't very
cheery, nor was I eating my food very enthusiastically.  Rather than
respond angrily, though, she misunderstood.  She thought my mood was a
direct result of the family situation, and she thought I wasn't eating
because I had already eaten pizza.  "If you're not hungry you can give your
food to Robbie and Ian," she suggested kindly, and although Robbie had
spent the last ten minutes convincing her he wasn't hungry, I saw his eyes
light up at the prospect of chicken nuggets.  He sidled over to me and
hovered, giving me an expectant smile.  I relented and handed him the damn
nuggets, which he gratefully took.  I gave Ian my fries, which he chose to
eat slowly, one at a time, a style that greatly contrasted Robbie's rapid
consumption of all the remaining chicken nuggets.  He then proceeded to
drink the sweet and sour sauce that he hadn't used on the nuggets; shame
was not a quality of his.

A horn out in the driveway brought me out of my reverie.  Robbie jumped to
his feet and ran to the dining room to look out the bay windows.  "It's
Mom!" he shouted to Ian.  "I'll see you later, Zach," he yelled, waving at
Mom and running out the door.  Ian, in his typical manner, was much slower.
He left the fries he had eaten only half of on the coffee table, offering
me a very meek parting as he, too, scampered out the door.  Mom laughed
after he had shut the door behind him.

"Sometimes I'm not sure those boys really have the same parents," she said,
and I could tell she was trying her best to be in a good mood.  "If it
weren't for their matching faces and blond hair, anyway."  She waited for
me to say something, and when I didn't, she motioned for me to come over on
the couch with her via her usual method of patting.

I obeyed, albeit with no small amount of internal conflict.  The closer I
got to her, the more I could smell the smoke on her.  Maybe she hadn't been
crying or staying up all night waiting for Jesse, but she definitely hadn't
stopped smoking.  I dropped wearily into the seat beside her, and she
wasted no time in putting an arm around me and squeezing my neck in a
semi-hug.  She gave my leg a pat and stared at me from the side.

"I wish you wouldn't be so upset," she started delicately, brushing a few
wisps of hair to the side and then running her fingernails gently across my
scalp.  "Your dad will call soon, I promise."  I didn't say anything; I
wanted to believe her, and I wanted to feel better, if for nothing else
because she was trying to make me feel better, but I couldn't.  I sat
beside her motionless.  "It's about time for a haircut, bud," she said
after a few moments of silence.  "You're getting kind of shaggy up here."

She'd done it again.  She'd used the name Dad called me.  She'd never done
that until yesterday, but now she'd done it twice in as many days.  I
jerked at the sound of it noticeably, and she gave me a funny look.

"Why hasn't he called already?" I found myself asking, although I hadn't
planned on speaking.  "How long does he plan on waiting?  Doesn't he care
at all?" I asked, staring straight ahead and making my face determinedly
stony.  I wasn't going to cry again anytime soon, I'd decided, after last
night when I humiliated myself in front of Brad.

"Of course he cares," Mom assured me, squeezing me more tightly against
her.  "He's just as sad about this as everyone else.  It's even harder for
him to deal with it because he has to do it all alone."

"That's how everyone is dealing with it," I said, and for a second I hated
everyone.  Mom, Dad, Jesse, even Brad, and especially Tyler.

"It's just taking time, sweetie," she said, and I didn't want to listen.  I
wanted to pull myself away and run off to my room.  "I don't know what's
going to end up happening with me and your dad, but I do know it won't feel
any worse than this.  And I promise your dad will call soon," she repeated.

But she couldn't promise me anything.  She didn't have any more of an idea
what was going on than I did, and she had no more control than I did.  She
couldn't even control her own daughter.

"And what about Jesse?" I asked, shooting her a look.  "Are you ever going
to make her come home?  It's hard for things to even kind of go back to
normal if she doesn't ever stay here.  It's more like the whole family is
splitting up instead of just you and Dad."  She didn't say anything for a
moment, and I wasn't sure how she would sound when she broke her silence.

"Jesse is old enough to make some of her own decisions," she said calmly,
quietly.  "It's not like she isn't coming home at all, anyway.  She told me
last night she got home before you did."  It was her turn to shoot me a
look.  "You, on the other hand, are thirteen years old, and if I tell you
to be home by ten, you need to do it from now on.  I would've been worrying
about you."

"If you'd even known I wasn't here," I mumbled quietly, finishing her
sentence.

"I thought I could trust you to come home!" she blinked, as if stunned by
my rudeness.  "I know you were only next door, but you still don't need to
be coming home at midnight.  I don't see what you find so interesting about
spending time with a boy that much older than you, anyway."

"He's nice," I said defensively.  "Besides, it's not just him.  There's his
brother, too."

"Yes, I know.  I just met them," she said, her voice taking on a hint of
annoyance.  "Anyway, if you want to go over there and play video games
during the day, that's fine, but I don't want you hanging around Brad until
midnight.  You're probably bothering him more than you know, anyway."

"I'm not bothering him!" I protested, offended at the very idea that he
might not have enjoyed my company.  "He came over and invited me over in
the first place!" I said, although in truth it wasn't as straight forward
as that.  She didn't seem to like this information.

"Why would a boy that age bother with that?" she asked, more to herself
than me, because I barely heard her.  She was frowning slightly now.

"Because he's nice," I repeated.  "He only came over because his brother
hit a ball in our backyard, and then he invited me over.  He felt sorry for
me, I think.  He said he saw me in the window and I looked sad."  My face
flushed when I blurted it all out; I hadn't planned on telling her that.

"Why was he watching you through the window?" she asked, her face wrinkling
even more.  As if suspicious he might be watching us even now, she got up
off the couch and walked to the bay windows, closing the curtains.  She
came back to the living room and lit a cigarette.  I wanted to tell her how
much I hated it when she smoked, but I didn't say anything.  She looked too
bothered for me to push it.

"I don't think he was watching me," I corrected her.  "He just walked by
and saw me."  But she hadn't heard me.  She changed the channel from MTV to
CNN.  All she ever watched was the news.  It was torture.

"I don't mind you going over there during the day," she repeated
absent-mindedly.  "But when I get home at five I want you back here."  I
stared at her, my anger slowly building, but she wasn't noticing.

"Why?" I asked suddenly.  "Why can't I go over there whenever I want?  It's
not like he's going to kidnap me.  He just turned eighteen," I said lamely.
I was pretty sure kidnappers were generally older than eighteen, anyway.
"You're just being weird because Jesse's dating some older guy you don't
trust."  It was a bad example; I knew it as soon as I saw the look on her
face.  I shouldn't have compared Brad to Jesse's boyfriend.

"That's not it at all," she said in between puffs of her cigarette,
ignoring the accidental implications behind my example.  "It's just that I
don't know Brad, or his family, and since I can't understand why an
eighteen-year-old and a thirteen-year-old would be spending a lot of time
together, you don't need to be over there too much.  That's all."

"See what I mean?" I shouted, bolting upright now, getting to my feet.
"Everyone in this family is miserable so they want to make sure everyone
else is miserable, too!  I'm not going to sit around the house all day by
myself and be sad.  Just because my family sucks doesn't mean I shouldn't
have friends!" I took off for my room, and this time I did slam my door.