My Life Next Door

“The stars are different around the world, did you know? If we were in Australia, we’d see a whole new sky.”

“Not just backward?” Jase pulls me closer, pillowing my head on his chest. I take a deep breath of warm skin and clean shirt. “Or upside down? Completely different?”

“Mostly different,” I tell him. “It’s winter in Australia, so they see the Summer Cross…and Orion’s belt. And this orangey red star, Aldebaran, which is part of the eye of Taurus. You know, the bull.”

“So how is it, exactly,” he asks, tracing his finger idly around the collar of my shirt, a mesmerizing motion, “that you became an astrophysicist?”

“Kind of a roundabout way.” I close my eyes, breathe in the smell of cut grass, Mom’s rosebushes, Jase’s clean skin.

“Go on,” he says, sliding the finger up my throat to follow the line of my jaw, then back down along the collar. I feel almost hypnotized by that simple motion and find myself telling a story I’ve never told.

“You know how my dad left my mom before I was born?”

He nods, his brow furrowing, but doesn’t say anything.

“Well, I don’t really know how it happened—she doesn’t talk about it. Whether she kicked him out or he just left or they had some big fight or…what. But he left behind some stuff—in this big box that my mom was supposed to mail to him. I guess. But she was about to have me, and Trace was really little too, only just over a year old. So she didn’t send it, she just stuck it in the back of the front hall closet.” I’ve always thought this was so unlike Mom, not to sweep up every bit.

“Tracy and I found the box when we were about five and six. We thought it was a Christmas present or something. So we opened it, all excited. But it was just full of random things—old T-shirts with band names on them, cassette tapes, pictures of these big gatherings of people we didn’t know, sports gear. One sneaker. Stuff. Not what we were hoping for, once we realized what it was.”

“What were you hoping for?” Jase’s voice is quiet.

“Treasure. Old diaries or something. His Barbie collection.”

“Er…your dad collected Barbies?”

I laugh. “Not that I know of. But we were little girls. We would have preferred that to some smelly shoes and old R.E.M. and Blind Melon T-shirts.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Now Jase’s finger has edged down my shorts, tracing the same slow line along the waistband. I take a hard-to-catch breath.

“Anyway, at the very bottom there was this telescope. A fancy one, but still all wrapped up, like he’d gotten it but never opened it. Or someone had given it to him and he didn’t want it. So I took it and hid it in my closet.”

“Then you used it? On the roof?” Jase shifts, propping himself up on an elbow now, looking at my face.

“Not on the roof, just from my window. I couldn’t figure out the directions for a few years. But after that, yeah, I used it. Looking for aliens, finding the Big Dipper, that kind of thing.” I shrug.

“Wondering where your dad was, at all?”

“Oh, maybe. Probably. At first. After that I just got hooked by the idea of all those planets far away, all those other stories.”

Jase nods, as though this makes sense to him.

I find myself feeling a little shaky. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Hmm?” He circles my belly button with that light finger. Oh my God.

“Tell me a story.” I turn my head, bury my lips in the worn cotton of his shirt. “Tell me things I don’t know.”

So, with nothing to be distracted by, no brothers and sisters bursting in, no crowd of friends, no awkward on-the-job moment, just me and Jase, I learn things about the Garretts I couldn’t by watching. I learn that Alice is in nursing school. Jase raises his eyebrow at me when I laugh at this. “What, you don’t see my big sister as a ministering angel? I’m shocked.” Duff’s allergic to strawberries. Andy was born two months early. All the Garretts are musical. Jase plays the guitar, Alice the piccolo, Duff the cello, Andy the violin. “And Joel?” I ask.

“Oh, the drums, of course,” Jase says. “It was the clarinet, but then he realized that was just not a turn-on.”

The soft air smells sweet and leafy. Feeling the slow beat of Jase’s heart beneath my cheek, I close my eyes and relax. “How was the training?”

“I’m a little sore,” Jase admits. “But Dad knows what he’s doing. It worked for Joel, anyway. He got a full ride at State U for football.”

“So where are you applying, to college—do you know yet?”

Jase, who’s again leaning on one elbow, lies back, rubbing the side of his nose with his thumb. His face, usually so alight and open, clouds.

“I don’t know. Not sure I can apply.”

“What?”

He tu

I twist to face him. “There’s got to be something, Jase. Some other kind of scholarship…student loan.

There’s something out there, I’m sure.”

I think of Mrs. Garrett trying to limit how much juice the kids pour. “Duff, you’ll never drink that whole glass. Pour a little, then refill if you’re really thirsty.” Then of Mom, who makes gourmet dishes on a whim after watching the Food Network, food she won’t be home long enough to eat, and that Tracy, and now just me, will never be able to finish.

“There’s a way, Jase. We’ll find it.”

He shrugs, looking slightly less bleak as his eyes rest on me. “Sailor Supergirl to my rescue now?” I salute him. “At your service.”

“Yeah?” He leans over, ducking his head so our noses touch. “Could I get a list of those services?”

“I’ll show you mine,” I breathe, “if…”

“Deal,” Jase murmurs, then his mouth shifts to mine, warm and sure as his hands pull me close.

Later, he leans up one last time to kiss me as he descends the trellis, then waits while I fold the blanket and toss it down to him. “G’night!”

“Good night!” I whisper, then hear Mom’s voice, behind me.

“Sweetheart?”

Oh God. I leap back in through the window, so fast I smack the top of my forehead on the frame. “Ow!”

“Were you talking to someone out there?” Mom, looking chic in a sleeveless black shirt and fitted white pants, has her arms folded, frowning. “I thought I heard voices.” I try to keep the flush from flooding my face. Unsuccessfully. I’m blushing, and my lips are swollen. I could not possibly look more guilty.

“Just calling hello to Mrs. Schmidt across the street,” I say. “She was getting her mail.” Incredibly, Mom buys this. She’s already distracted.

“I’ve told you a hundred times not to leave that window open. It lets out the central air and it lets in the bugs!” She slams the window shut, flipping the lock, then looking out. I pray she won’t see the incriminating figure of Jase heading home, with, God, a blanket! Not that Mom would necessarily put two and two together, but that was so close and she’s not stupid and…

I feel as though my heart might pound its way out of my chest.

“Why don’t those people ever put away the clutter in their yard?” she mutters to herself, pulling down the shade.

“Was there something you wanted, Mommy?” I ask, then grimace. I haven’t called her Mommy for at least six years.

But the word seems to take the edge off and she comes over, to brush my hair from my face, almost as Jase did, except that she pulls it back, gathering it into a ponytail, then shifts to study the effect, giving me that smile that reaches her eyes. “Yes, I need your help, Samantha. I have a few events tomorrow and I’m stuck. Come help me? We can have tea.”