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“Asssshole.” Emory samples the new word, drawing out the s sound, one of the ones he struggles with.
“Just our luck. He got that one down perfectly. Nice work, Gwen.” Dad forks a few more pancakes onto my plate.
“Now you’re being one to me. I mean it. What’s the deal with you two?”
“Your cousin needs to grow up.”
“He’s got another year in high school, Dad.” I hope.
“When I was his age—” Dad begins.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. You had shitty luck and—”
“Stop talking like that in front of your brother,” Dad thunders. Em shrinks back in his seat, reaching out a maple-sticky hand for me. I grab on to it, squeeze. Dad grumbles, he doesn’t roar. What is this?
“What I mean is, is that what you want for me and Nic? Just what you had? What about all that stuff you said at Sandy Claw?”
“Eat your pancakes,” Dad huffs, shoving a forkful into his mouth. “At least, without your cousin here there’s enough to go around. That kid eats like there’s no tomorrow. I swear, half the money I give your mom goes down his throat.”
“You’re mad at him for having an appetite now? What in God’s name?”
Dad has the game face Mom never will, but I see guilt flash across it. “You don’t understand,” he says.
“No. I don’t. Help me out. What’s your deal here?”
He reaches for the plastic gallon of milk, sloshes more into his glass. “It never gets better, kid. Bills, bills, bills. Your little brother’s got asthma. He’s got physical therapy. He’s got speech therapy. He’s got occupational therapy. Insurance covers some, but the damn bills just keep on coming.”
“I know, Dad. But what does that have to do with Nic? He didn’t cause any of that.”
Dad clears his throat, looks over at my little brother; abruptly stands and flicks on the television, shoving in a DVD. Em looks at him uncertainly for a moment, but then he curls up in Dad’s big recliner, cuddles Hideout against his cheek, soaks in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Any day can be Christmas for Emory. Dad sits back at the table, leaning toward me to say quietly, “I bust my butt all the time and every dollar that comes in flows back out like I’ve got a hole in my pocket. I don’t play the numbers, I don’t smoke or spend it at the bar. I’m careful with the cash, Gwen. And it still doesn’t matter a damn.”
“So cutting Nic loose will help?”
“You know I won’t do that. Gimme a break. I look out for what’s mine. Like I do with Em. Even if the kid is nothing like me.”
The words hover in the air.
Dad shovels another forkful of food into his mouth.
I feel sick.
Emory has Dad’s brown eyes. He has his crooked big toe. Dad’s smile, though he uses it much more often. Anyone, anyone, would look at them and know they were father and son. But Dad left. He doesn’t see the day-to-day. He doesn’t see Em tilt his head against Grandpa Ben’s shoulder, huskily singing Gershwin lyrics as they watch another Fred-and-Ginger movie. He doesn’t see Emory hurry to the refrigerator to pick out Mom’s bagged lunch when he sees her pulling on her sneakers in the morning. He doesn’t see Emory carefully align his fingers to respond to Nic’s high fives, his face glowing with big-boy worship. He hears how hard it is for Em to talk, the draggy slowness in his voice. He sees that his face is sometimes blank of everything, and even we who love him best can only guess what’s happening inside. He sees everything that makes him different and nothing that makes him Emory. I feel sick, yeah, but I also feel sorry, so sorry for my father.
“My family . . . we’re not the Brady Bunch, but everyone’s always been all there, if you get what I’m saying.”
I think I may throw up. “Emory’s all there.”
“C’mon, Gwen. Your aunt Gules is a nutcase, but she’s not . . .” He’s been sitting straight but now seems to deflate a little. “Not like your brother. No one we know is like your brother. I just don’t know how the hell this happened.”
“Do you know how many things have to go right to make a perfect baby, Dad?” I hold out my hands, settle each finger into the next, slotting them both together. “It all has to—”
His hand closes on mine, rough from work, freckled from the sun. “No, I don’t. I don’t know that sort of thing. I don’t want you to know either, for Chrissake. Just stay away from all that. I only know your brother is never going to get better. There’s always going to be something. Ben’s getting on. Your mother takes crap care of herself. Every time I turn around Nic is working on his body or out messing around with Vivien. With plans to light out for God knows how many years after that. That leaves you and me, pal.”
“Everybody helps with Em,” I say—although lately it’s mostly been Grandpa and me—and my voice is choky, hardly recognizable. “What’s different now?”
“Castle’s. I gotta start doing breakfasts. Put in more outside tables. All costs money. I don’t have extra.”
My knuckles are white around my fork. “Nic’s extra? Or would that be Emory?” I look over at my little brother, his hair sticking up in front because there’s a bit of syrup in it, kicking his foot in time to “We’re a Couple of Misfits.”
Dad scrapes back his chair, shifts over to stroke the back of my brother’s neck. Em tips his neck back, leans his head against Dad’s open palm.
Dad stares at me over his shoulder. “No, he’s not extra. Screw my life.”
Chapter Twenty-one
I am a huge cliché.
I am a teenage girl at the mall.
I am a teenage girl at the mall trying on bathing suits.
I am a teenage girl at the mall trying on bathing suits even though she has a perfectly good one from last year that fits fine.
Worst of all, I am a teenage girl at the mall trying on bathing suits even though she has a perfectly good one from last year that fits fine and hating how she looks in every single one.
It doesn’t help that I am also a teenage girl who baked two batches of sugar cookies and a pan of congo bars last night as a chaser for di
Aren’t these stores supposed to want to make us look good? Then what’s up with the cheapo overhead lighting that highlights every single flaw and creates a few extras for good measure?
Cliché #5: I am a teenage girl with body issues.
Which get worse in bathing suits. (#6)
And I’m doing this for a boy. (#7)
Well, not because he asked or anything. Not that he had time to do anything but blush after I blurted, “Were you wearing anything under there?” and then did a bat-out-of-hell from his apartment. But Spence must have passed on the reason for my epically awkward visit to the Field House, because this morning Grandpa Ben came in from his early morning walk.
“I met the young yard boy getting to work. He had trouble starting the mower, so I showed him the tricks. He said he would tutor Emory in the swimming today at three.”
Did he say anything else? Did he mention me? Did he . . . Yes, right, absolutely. He lined up the tutoring, then said, “By the way, Mr. Cruz, I think you should know that I have reason to suspect your granddaughter was picturing me naked.”
I’ve got a perfectly adequate bathing suit but it’s a one-piece and black and bears a distinct resemblance to Mrs. E.’s beachwear. I suspect dressing exactly like an octogenarian is a fashion don’t when you’re seventeen. On the beach. With a gorgeous boy.
Who’s simply giving swimming lessons to your brother.
Out of the goodness of his heart.
I wheedled the use of Dad’s truck out of him, saying I needed it to take Emory to speech. Though, really, it was more that I felt he owed me one after last night’s bleak lecture, stark as black-and-white headlines on a newspaper. Your brother = your future. No amount of sugar, butter, and flour can quite get the taste of that out of my mouth. Then Grandpa wanted to come along because there’s almost always a few yard sales happening on Saturdays in Maplecrest.