“Sharknado?” I asked, my eyes misting a little.
“I’ll even throw in Ghost Shark,” Wally promised. “Just get your butt back here. We’ll see you soon.”
I hung up and wiped at the tears gathering at the corners of my eyes. Luke crossed the office and knelt in front of me. “Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said, rubbing his warm hands over my chilled ones. “You’ll see him soon.”
“I know. I just miss him, that’s all.”
“Little brother?” he asked. I raised my eyebrows. He shrugged. “I could hear that ‘family love’ thing in your voice when you talked to him.”
“One of several. Sort of. It’s kind of hard to explain.”
And damn it, I’d forgotten to ask the boys to cancel Protocol: Icarus. I was sure that was significant in a subconscious, Freudian way.
“What’s a Sharknado?” Luke asked.
I gave a watery laugh just as my phone buzzed to life in my hand. Luke’s brow rose as Will Ferrell yelled, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” The Zoolander ringtone was the perfect one for my mother.
The noise seemed far too loud now that I was used to “off the grid” decibel levels. Between that and the panic at potentially having to deal with a phone ambush from my mother in front of Luke, I fumbled for the buttons and hit “Accept.”
“Dang it,” I whispered.
“Kelsey?” she cried, so loudly that I could hear her voice with the phone two feet from my head. “Where on earth have you been? Why haven’t you answered my calls? Who do you think you are, ignoring me that way?”
“Mother, I’m not ignoring you. I’m snowed in at my staff retreat at Lake Lockwood. We don’t have power and I couldn’t charge my phone. I’m fine, by the way. No need to worry.”
Luke mouthed, I’ll let you take that, and backed out of the room as quickly as those long legs would carry him.
“Snowed in.” Mother scoffed. “What do you mean, snowed in? Don’t be silly. People haven’t been snowed in by this weather. It’s just a little sleet.”
“Yeah, in your end of the state, but trust me, it’s a regular ice age down here.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.” She sniffed dismissively. “And besides, I didn’t call to talk to you about the weather. Darrell called me.”
Oh, no.
“He says you’ve been neglecting him. That you haven’t made any time for him lately and he’s feeling lonely. Now, you know what happens when a man starts to feel neglected, Kelsey Anne.”
He moves in with your aptly named, highly vocal neighbor?
Darrell must have started to feel desperate if he’d resorted to calling my mother to get me to respond to his texts. He only dragged her into our arguments when he was really afraid of losing. Mother was his last-resort nuclear option, mostly because her flattery and simpering at him bordered on creepy. But that didn’t keep him from turning on the baby brown eyes and tattling to her about my being distant or premenstrual or just generally incompetent as a girlfriend. I scrubbed my hand over my face and tilted my forehead against the cold maple table. I had known this was a possibility. But I certainly hadn’t expected him to go there so quickly. And of course he’d twisted our sorry tale into a poor, pitiful woe-is-Darrell fest instead of just telling her that we broke up.
When I didn’t answer her, Mother hissed, “They stray, Kelsey. When men feel neglected, they stray. Now, if you don’t want to lose that man, here’s what you’re going to do.”
“Mother, I’ve already lost that man. Darrell neglected to tell you that we broke up weeks ago.”
“Kelsey, no!” Mother whined. “Oh, how could you let that happen?”
“I didn’t let anything happen, Mother. It just happened.”
I was not about to tell her that he dumped me. I would not enable this cycle. Honestly, the only kindness Darrell had done me in all of this was not telling Mother that he’d left me for Loud-Sex Shelley. That alone almost made up for the fact that he’d forgotten my last two birthdays.
“Because you let it! You act like good men just grow on trees.”
“He’s not a good man! He’s not even an okay man. He’s an unemployed, immature thief with commitment issues.”
“Well, no man is perfect. You have to take the time to train them up.”
“I do not have that sort of time, Mother.”
“You call him up and you apologize for whatever you did.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking you, Kelsey.”
“Good, that means I still grasp what your tone of voice means after all these years.”
“You’re going to call him.”
“Good-bye, Mother.”
I hung up the phone and disconnected it from the charger with a metallic pop. Without thinking, I lobbed the phone in its pretty, sparkly purple case across the office, toward the door, and buried my face in my hands.
I was starting to think my mother actually disliked me. Not just disapproved of or resented me, but actively wished for bad things to come into my life. Why else would she want me to grovel my way back into Darrell’s good graces? How else was it possible for a parent to dismiss what her daughter needed or wanted so easily? It wasn’t that she was afraid I would end up alone. It wasn’t that she worried I would never settle down. She didn’t care whether I was loved. She didn’t care whether I was successful. She just didn’t want me to be happier than she was, and she was pretty damned miserable, from what I could tell.
I’d always held on to the hope that one day I would settle into some sort of civil relationship with my mother, a stalemate in which we both tacitly agreed not to pick at each other at every opportunity. But now I realized that I was going to have to pull away from her even more if I wanted to stay sane. I would speak to her enough to stay in contact with my dad, but that was it.
“Why are people always throwing things at my head?”
I looked up to see Charlie standing in the office doorway, holding my phone. I swiped at my wet cheeks, hoping I didn’t look completely splotchy and snotty. Charlie was kind enough not to comment on my damp, reddened eyes as he flopped down in the chair across from Sandra’s desk. “First Bonnie throws a cactus at my head last year, and now you’re tossing your phone. Are you all trying to tell me something? Is the message that I shouldn’t walk down hallways?”
“The message is ‘We’re going to put a bell on you so you can’t surprise us.’ ”
“Well, a bell is preferable to a concussion by glitter phone,” he said. His expression softened. “Luke said your mom called. And it’s a testament to how upset you seemed by the phone call that he was more focused on the ‘mom’ part than the ‘Hey, Kelsey managed to charge her phone’ part. Also, that he came and found me to tell me about it, since he’s made his interest in you pretty clear.”
I was unable to speak. I’d told Charlie a few stories about my mother, but I could not tell him how bad our relationship was. I couldn’t tell him that she wanted me back together with Darrell, where I “belonged.” I just couldn’t.
Charlie came around the desk, wrapped his arms around me, and pressed me to his chest. I sighed into his sweater, breathing in that spicy tea scent. He tucked his chin over my hair and rocked me ever so slightly.
“Have I ever told you what my dad said to me when I took the job at the KCT?” he asked.
“You’ve never told me anything about your family, other than that your dad’s a math professor somewhere,” I told him. “In fact, you’ve been pretty pointed about not sharing information about your family.”
“My family is batshit insane.”
My eyes went wide at the sound of Charlie using actual curse words.
“My family has always disapproved of me working for the KCT,” he said. “And when I say ‘disapproved,’ I mean stopped speaking to me for months at a time when I have ref
used to quit. You Southerners think you have the market cornered on family dysfunction, but you underestimate how we Yankees can use sarcasm and withheld affection to really put the thumbscrews to each other. Sometimes cold sterility is just as bad as a drunken holiday meltdown.”
“Clearly you’ve never been to Thanksgiving at my uncle Burl’s house,” I muttered, making him crack the slightest of smiles.
“My father achieved the sort of stardom your mother dreamed of, only in academic circles. He’s a department chair at Northwestern, a onetime finalist for the Fields Medal. He intended that I would further his mathematical dynasty. I swear, he was running Singapore Math flash cards with me from my cradle.”
“But . . . you’re pretty good at math,” I said. “So didn’t you fulfill his expectations?”
“I never found my father’s area of research very interesting. Yes, theoretical math has its place, but I’d much rather find some way to put all of those formulas to good use. I was always interested in statistics, in the behavioral patterns that could be predicted from mathematical information. My father doesn’t see the use in it. People are stupid, destructive creatures, he says, and there’s no point in trying to predict what they’ll do because it will probably be the most stupid, destructive thing possible.”
“He sort of has a point there.” He frowned at me. I threw up my hands. “I’m just sayin’.”
“It was never enough. My grades. Choosing to go to University of Illinois for my undergrad. My decision to attend a state school over MIT for my first doctorate. The originality of my research. He was always pushing, always demanding. Always reminding me of the plans he had for me. And frankly, I sort of cracked.”
“You had a nervous breakdown?”
“I don’t know if you’d call it a breakdown so much as just walking away from everything and everyone I knew,” he said. “But in the circles where my parents travel it was almost as good as being dragged away by the white-clad men with butterfly nets. I stood up in the middle of an extremely boring faculty dinner—where my father was receiving some sort of award for especially dedicated brown-nosing from the university president—and told my father that I didn’t care about the teaching assistant position he’d secured for me there. I was going to use my statistics degree to work for a state-run travel department in Kentucky.”
“No, that’s pretty close to a nervous breakdown,” I assured him. “So how often do you talk to your parents?”
“Every few months, long enough for them to ask whether I’ve ‘come to my senses’ and am planning to come home.”
“And do you plan to?”
He shook his head. “I can’t live on their terms. With them, it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. There’s no compromise. And the life they want me to live . . . it would kill me. Kelsey, you can’t live your life to please other people.”
“That sounds eerily applicable to my life,” I told him. I wiped at the last of the tear stains on my cheeks. “So, okay, clearly I’m doing a pretty good job of removing the destructive forces in my life. The next step is what?”
He stared at me, long and hard, wetting his lips in a way that made my knees get a little wobbly. “Getting what you want.”
“Oh, well, if I figure out how to make that happen, I will leave this place, write a bestselling self-help book, and move to the South of France.”
“Well, the first step is deciding what you want and making it clear to the people around you.”
By the power of Grayskull, that should not sound as sexy as it did. I cleared my throat and did some subtle leg crossing under the desk. “Interesting theory.”
“For instance, I sort of wanted to be a poet,” he said.
“Be serious.”
“I’m being very serious. I was going to specialize in haiku.”
“Is there a big market for mathematically themed haiku?”
“Sadly, no.”
9
In Which I Lose My Panties in a Pillow Fort
My discovery of the magical phone-charging lamp did much to improve the staff’s outlook. Being able to call loved ones, contact the office, and get updates from home gave us some hope that we would eventually get out of Lockwood Lodge and return to our normal, well-lit lives. Sadie was so pleased she declared Saturday an official “day off” to compensate us for all of our hard work. On Friday night, we stockpiled firewood and food that could be prepped ahead of time and planned to be completely idle for the next day.
We’d woken to bright morning sunlight streaming through the windows. The (second) layer of ice was beginning to melt off in steady streaming rivulets of water dripping down from the roof, creating strange lacy patches in the snow near the lodge’s foundation.
As we finished our breakfast, I gently nudged Charlie under the table with the toe of my boot. His eyes flew up to my face. “Kels?”
I pressed a finger to my lips and gestured toward the lobby entrance. He frowned. “Kelsey, what are—”
I waved my hands emphatically and pressed my finger to my lips again. Honestly, who doesn’t understand the international sign for shushing?
I snatched his dishes and mine off the table and took them to the pass, where Bonnie was directing the other ladies in the most cheerful way to go about morning dishwashing duty. It looked like Jacob’s head was about to explode.
Charlie was still seated, staring at me in complete confusion. I passed our table, snagging his arm and my shoulder bag on the way out. “What are you doing?” he asked, sounding sincerely concerned for my mental well-being.
“Come on. We’re having a snow day,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Please stop saying ‘what’ so loudly. Honestly, it’s like hanging out with Sadie. Actually, stop talking altogether. We don’t want to call anyone’s attention to the fact that we’re ditching the group for the day. If Sadie feels like we’re not making proper use of our day off, she’ll probably jump-start a marathon ‘Kumbaya’ session or something.”
He shuddered. “Anything is preferable to that.”
I led Charlie to a remote corner of the second floor, where the management had placed an ill-planned rec room. It was just as well appointed as the rest of the resort: thick gray carpet, comfy couches, large-screen TV, and lovely views of the lake through windows that were now frosted floor-to-ceiling with a mottled sheet of ice. But the location was so far out of the normal flow of guest foot traffic, I doubted the place was ever used. Everything in the room looked practically brand-new. If we could keep our location a secret, it would be perfect for what I planned.
Charlie seemed to get more nervous the farther we got from the lobby. He kept glancing over his shoulder, as if he was hoping that someone was watching us wander away together. Did he want witnesses? I shook my head and reminded myself that I wasn’t doing this for the current less likable version of Charlie Bennett. I was doing this for the little boy who had to do math drills while his schoolmates got to build snowmen.
I opened the door to the rec room and ushered him inside to show him our snow day refuge. We were fully prepared for a day of do-nothing-ness. I’d taken blankets and pillows from the other guest rooms and built a pillow fort under a long table the owners most likely intended for board games or meetings. I’d stocked it with magazines and paperbacks from the gift shop and snacks I’d liberated from our food stash. Since we couldn’t watch actual cartoons, I had colored some pages from a Waterways of Kentucky coloring book and taped them to the TV screen. And the best part was that the table was placed behind one of the largest couches, so Fort Kelsey wasn’t visible unless you walked into the far corner of the room.
It was like stealth slacking.
“This is the weirdest, most creative, weirdest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Charlie told me.
“You said ‘weirdest’ twice.”
“Yes, I did.” He gave
a mocking little salute. “Permission to enter the pillow fort?”
My lips twitched, but I tried to keep a straight face. “If you’re nice to me.”
He frowned. “It’s a conditional pillow fort?”
“The snowpocalypse changes a woman. It’s a cold, cruel world out there.”
He pressed his hand over his heart and adopted his best Southern drawl. “Please, ma’am, could I enter the pillow fort? I’ve been wanderin’ this frozen wasteland for, oh, a couple of hours now, and I’m shiverin’ to the bone.”
“Okay, but the Archie comic is mine.”
Charlie gave an exaggerated gasp. “You found an Archie comic?”
“In the maintenance office. There was other reading material in there, too. But it wasn’t pillow-fort friendly.”
He held up his hands. “In the interest of peace, I will not ask for details.”
Figuring him for a “no thanks, I’ll stick with the couch” type, I hadn’t actually expected him to crawl under a table covered in bedding with me. If I had, I would have considered the potential awkwardness of being in such an enclosed space with someone who, only days ago, wasn’t being so nice to me.
Daylight filtered in through the green polyester blankets, giving the little table cave a dappled forest feel, and thanks to the industrial fabric softener used by the lodge, it was incongruously April fresh. I scooted down to the opposite end of the table, maintaining what I considered a respectable fort interior distance. Charlie sprawled his lean body down the entire length of the tent, his sock-clad feet resting near my shoulder, crossed at the ankle. I was grateful I only whacked my head against the table leg once as I settled against my pile of pillows. I stretched my legs, nowhere near as long as Charlie’s, barely reaching his ribs. He tucked them under his arm, pressing them against the warmth of his side.
A comfortable silence fell over Fort Kelsey. I had good company and snacks, and my immediate surroundings smelled like fabric softener. My toes felt room temperature for the first time in days. It was heaven.