“I like that.”
“Yeah, you should see it with the drawings. They’re pretty great. I read it in this collection in my grandmother’s house. When she moved to a nursing home, I asked my dad if I could have it, but he said he was hiring someone to box and sell all her books and it was too big a pain to start picking stuff out.”
“Doesn’t seem that hard to grab one book.”
“I know. I could just buy my own copy, but it pisses me off that I have to.”
“Do you have any other grandparents?”
“Well, I had the usual four, but my father’s father is dead, and his mother doesn’t recognize anyone anymore—Alzheimer’s.”
“What about your mother’s?”
“They’re alive. They send us birthday cards and stuff and see us once in a while, but it’s weird. My mother has this whole other family now, and I think they feel much closer to those kids.”
“Why did your mother leave? Do you mind my asking?”
“It’s fine,” he says as he pulls out his wallet. “After Ethan was diagnosed, she said she’d always thought there was something wrong with my father, and now she knew why, and that since my dad was the reason their kids weren’t normal, he should have to deal with us, not her.” He starts to feed a dollar bill into the slot. The machine rejects it, and he says irritably, “These stupid things never work.”
I get the sense he’s done with the topic, and I don’t want to push—it’s got to be painful even if he acts like it isn’t. As weak as my mother is, I can’t imagine her abandoning us. I leave him to his struggles with the soda machine and move over to the snacks, where I buy some peanut butter crackers. Once David finally manages to coax a couple of Cokes out of his machine, we change places, and he gets chips while I get drinks.
Booty cradled against our chests, we make our way back toward our lane. Four middle-aged women have been bowling in the alley next to ours for the last half-hour. I sort of registered that they were there and constantly talking to one another, but otherwise was too focused on our game to pay them much attention. Now, as we walk behind their bench, one of them says to another, “I’m surprised they left those two alone.” She nods in the direction of Ethan and Ivy. Her back is to us. “Clearly there’s something wrong with them,” she says. “I think the other two must be the caregivers—they look normal. Why they think it’s okay to leave them alone like that is beyond me. It doesn’t feel safe.”
“I know,” her friend says. She tucks a strand of her chin-length hair—bright red except for a thick gray stripe lining her part—behind her ear. “I’m worried that they’ll damage the floor—the girl is throwing the ball all over the place. She doesn’t have any control at all.”
“And the way the boy talks . . . He’s so loud. It’s disturbing.”
David suddenly pulls his arm back and hurls a bag of chips into the air, way up high in an arc that lands it on the floor right in front of the two women. They gasp in unison and turn to see where it came from.
One’s face is rounder, and her salt-and-pepper hair is brutally short, and the other has that badly dyed hair and a longer face . . . but their expressions are identical: confused and uncomfortable.
“Have some chips,” David says, his voice calmly hostile.
There’s a pause while the two women glance at each other nervously, and then the red-and-gray-haired woman leans forward, picks up the bag, and tosses it back.
“No, thank you,” she says as David catches it neatly in his free hand.
“I insist,” David says, and whips it back at them. It can’t possibly hurt anyone—I mean, it’s a bag of chips—but the gesture is violent, and they both cower away from the Lay’s with little noises of distress. He adds politely, “It’s the least we can do when we’ve added so much stress to your morning.”
The contrast between his pleasant words and angry action seems to render the women speechless. They clutch each other’s arms, leaving the chips untouched on the floor, while I hastily tug David toward our alley. I don’t want them to get so freaked out they call the manager. Or the police.
“Sometimes I fucking hate people,” he mutters as I drag him the few steps over to our lane.
“I know what you mean.”
“No, you don’t.” He shakes off my hand.
One good thing about Ivy and Ethan: neither of them seems to notice David’s change in mood.
We play another game, sisters against brothers this time. Other than encouraging and reassuring Ivy, I don’t say much, and neither does David or Ivy.
Ethan on the other hand . . . He talks and talks, mostly about TV shows. Apparently he’s been binge-watching a bunch since Ivy told him last weekend that she likes TV more than movies. He’s studied the Wikipedia and IMDB pages for every one of the shows and proceeds to tell us pretty much everything he’s learned from them, at an impressive volume. Our friends at lane number ten keep glancing over at him, then exchanging raised-eyebrow looks with each other.
Makes me furious. What’s their problem? Were they expecting a quiet morning at the bowling alley?
And then Ivy, who’s getting tired—you can tell from the sag in her shoulders—nothing wears her out so much as being social—aims a ball so carelessly that it pops in and out of the gutter and onto the next lane.
The women whisper to each other, and then the red-and-gray-haired one calls from a safe distance, “You really should be using bumpers, you know.”
“We’re almost done,” I say, responding because she’s looking right at me and only me—not at David (who probably scares her) and not at the other two (because they also probably scare her, just in a different way). “Sorry about that.”
She moves closer to the bench that divides their lane from ours and beckons to me. I’m curious enough to get up and go over. She leans forward and lowers her voice. “I just think you should make it easier for them, cut down on the frustration. It might be . . . you know . . . safer.”
“We’re doing fine,” I say stiffly. “Thanks for the suggestion.”
Ethan has overheard. He edges toward us. “I don’t need bumpers! They’re for little kids. I got a one-sixty in the last game, and I could get a one-seventy in this one if I bowl only strikes from now on.” His voice, as always, is a little too loud.
“Oh, okay,” the woman says, with a big fake smile. She takes a step back. “That’s fine. I just wanted you to know it’s an option.” She flees back to her friends, who are huddling on the other side of their lane, as far from us as possible. Staring. Staring.
“Let’s just go now,” Ivy says, her face stricken. “I don’t want to bowl anymore.”
“We’re not done,” Ethan tells her. He doesn’t seem bothered by the woman the way Ivy does. But then, she was the one who just flung a ball into the other lane and she knows it.
“It doesn’t matter,” David says, standing up. “We don’t have to finish.”
“You guys were destroying us anyway,” I add. “You definitely get the win.”
“That’s cheating.” Ethan grabs his bowling ball out of the ball return and hugs it tightly like someone’s going to try to take it away from him. “I don’t want to cheat.”
“It’s not cheating,” David says. “Everyone’s good with it.”
“Yes, it is!” Ethan shouts. “You can’t stop in the middle of a game! We have to finish! We have to!” He’s getting louder and more frantic, and everyone in the bowling alley is staring at him.
“Crap,” David whispers to me. “What do we do?”
I glance over at Ivy, who’s watching Ethan, her eyes big, her lower lip caught under her top teeth. She’s uncomfortable, but less upset than he is, at least for the moment.
“Let’s finish the game,” I say.
“But I want to leave,” Ivy says.
“We’ll play fast.”
“But—”
“We’ll be done soon. I promise. Please, Ivy.”
She
reluctantly sits back down.
Ethan slowly and carefully bowls his turn, while Ivy rocks unhappily on the bench, her hands fluttering softly through the air. Then David and I speed through our turns, grabbing and pitching the balls as soon as they emerge from the ball return. When I tell Ivy it’s her turn, she clutches the edge of the bench seat with both hands and shakes her head, casting shamed glances over at the lady in the next lane who said we should get bumpers.
“Want me to take your turn?” I ask her.
Ethan says, “That’s not fair, she—”
But his brother cuts him off. “It’s fine,” he says. “Chloe can bowl for Ivy.” So I do. Neither Ethan nor Ivy is very happy at this point, so it’s all about keeping things moving and getting us out of there.
The game ends—the guys win, of course—and we return our balls and grab our street shoes from their cubbies. I’m fascinated to see that Ethan ties his sneakers by making two rabbit ears and knotting them (instead of looping one lace around the other) because Ivy does the exact same thing.
I want to point it out to David, but he’s scowling down at his own shoes and tying them with such sharp, savage motions that I decide it’s not worth it.
“That was fun!” Ethan says when we’re in the parking lot.
“So much fun,” I say with way more enthusiasm than I’m feeling.
Ivy’s silent.
“Can we do something again soon?” Ethan asks her.
“Okay,” she says. “Just not bowling. I don’t like bowling.”
“It’s because you’re not very good at it.” Ethan pats her shoulder consolingly.
I almost laugh out loud, but another glance at David’s closed and angry face kills my amusement.
Ivy and I get into the car.
“You okay?” I ask once we’re settled.
“I don’t like bowling. I’m bad at it.”
“You did great. Seriously. For a first time—”
“My ball went onto the other people’s floor.”
“No one cared.”
“That woman did. She said I needed bumpers, and Ethan said those are for kids.”
“It’s not a big deal, Ives.”
“I don’t want to go bowling again.” She leans forward in her seat and turns up the radio volume. “Can we listen to 102.7?”
“Since when do you listen to 102.7?”
“Diana says they play the best music.” She switches stations and sits back.
I wish I could talk to her about David, about how angry he is at the world, and about how sometimes he seems to think I’m on his side and sometimes he seems to think I’m not, but dissecting other people’s emotions isn’t exactly her strong suit.
“What are we going to do tonight?” she asks.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but James’s parents have tickets to a play and they invited me to go with them.”
“I never go out at night,” she says wistfully. “Only during the day.”
“Would you want to go out with Ethan some night?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Progress! “Text him. Invite him to go to a movie next weekend. He likes movies.”
“And you’ll go with us?”
“I’ll drive you. But maybe I don’t need to stay for the whole thing.”
She doesn’t respond, just gets that worried look on her face before turning her head toward the window and whispering quietly to herself.
Fourteen
“HOW ARE THE LOVEBIRDS doing?” James asks when he picks me up that night. We’re driving downtown by ourselves, since there isn’t room in his parents’ car for their whole family plus me. And it’s kind of a relief—as nice as they all are to me, it’s a lot of work to be all adorable and cheerful and bright and perfect, the way I feel like I have to be to make them think I’m good enough for the son and brother they all dote on.
“Ivy and Ethan? I wouldn’t call them lovebirds, but I think they both had fun today.”
“What’s the long-term goal with them, anyway?” James asks. “I mean, do people like them get married? Do they have kids?”
“People like them?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
There’s a pause and then he says, “Why do you get so weird when we talk about your sister?”
“I don’t.”
“It’s fine. I totally get it, and I’m not mad or anything. But you should just know that I always feel like I have to be extra careful what I say about her, or you’ll get mad at me.”
“When have I ever gotten mad at you?”
“You know what I mean. Not like mad mad. Just quiet mad, like you’re annoyed but don’t want to show it.”
“I don’t feel that way,” I say, and, to prove it, I lean toward him and kiss his cheek, my chest straining against the tightening seat belt. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. Just cut me a little slack now and then.”
“I will. I mean, I do. I mean, I don’t need to because you don’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry if I seem weird sometimes—I’ll try not to be.”
And for the rest of the evening, I’m as not-weird as a girl can be. I’m so normal I’m practically invisible.
On Sunday, Sarah invites me to come over and do homework at her house. I find Mom in the kitchen with Ron and ask if I can borrow her car.
She’s nodding and reaching for her purse to get her car keys, when Ron raises his hand in a halt gesture. “Hold on, there. We were hoping we could all do something together this afternoon. Your mother was interested in a family hike.”
“I have a ton of homework,” I say. “And I already made plans with Sarah.”
“If I had a dollar for every time you say both of those things to get out of being with your family . . .” Ron shakes his head.
“Then what?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you had a dollar for every time I say those things, then what? What would happen?”
“I’d be rich,” he says irritably. “And I don’t love your tone.”
I appeal to my mother. “What’s wrong with my tone?”
“I don’t think you mean to, but sometimes you can sound a little . . .” She gropes. “Challenging.”
“Fine. I’ll try to be less ‘challenging.’ May I please have the car keys?”
She looks at Ron. He thrusts his fingers through his hair, tosses his head, and says, “It’s your call, Jeannie, of course. I thought you wanted to go hiking with the girls, but if you don’t care—”
“It’s okay,” she says, and gets her keys out of her purse and hands them to me.
“Thanks,” I say. “Text me if you need the car back at some point. Oh, and just so you know, Ivy hates hiking.”
“She can use the exercise,” Ron says.
“Tell her that. I’m sure that will completely change her mind about it.”
“Hear that?” he says to my mother. “That’s exactly the tone I’m talking about.”
“It may be too warm to hike anyway,” Mom says. “We can do something else.”
“Whatever you want,” he says, but I can still feel the heat of his angry gaze as I leave the kitchen, and I’m glad I’m escaping for the day. And sorry for Ivy that she’s not.
Sarah’s mother greets me at their front door and says, “I made cupcakes!” She sounds like a little kid who’s proud of herself.
I love Sarah’s mother. She totally homey and maternal, with her cheerful, round face, graying hair, and comfortably sturdy body, and she’s an amazing cook—but she also co-runs a travel blog that’s won all these awards and lets her score a ton of free trips for her family.
“Holy crap,” I say when Sarah and I are alone in their family room with an entire plate of her mother’s chocolate-frosted peanut butter cupcakes. “Your mom sets the bar high. You know what the last thing my mother baked was?”
“What?”
“A cake for my fourth birthday. And it was from
a mix.”
We curl up on the sofa with cupcakes, tonguing the frosting and moaning with practically orgasmic delight.
Sarah loses interest in hers once the frosting’s gone. She drops the sticky remains right on the coffee table—she’s an only child and gets away with making a mess everywhere—then licks her fingers clean. “Hey, didn’t you have another thing with David and his brother yesterday? How’d that go?”
“It was weird.” I finish my cupcake and drop the paper liner on top of hers. “For a lot of reasons. But mostly because of David. He’s different away from school.”
“I hope he’s nicer.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, he’s, like, a decent brother to Ethan, but he’s still pretty brutal to other people.”
“So how is he different?”
“I don’t know. More tortured, maybe? Less sure of himself?”
“Interesting.” She hugs her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. She’s wearing a tank top and our school sweatpants, rolled down at the waist and up at the ankles, and has her thick curly hair piled in a topknot. It’s a totally sporty look, which is funny, because she’s the least athletic person I’ve ever met, won’t even go for a walk if she can avoid it. “So he’s not a smug asshole all of the time?”
“Not really. He seems a little sad, actually. He’s got a rough home life. His mother left—I mean, like, totally left, started a different family—and his father remarried.”
“Ugh,” she says. “Don’t make me start feeling sorry for him. Even if his life sucks, he’s still a jerk, and you shouldn’t have to spend time with him. Couldn’t you find someone else for Ivy to date?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Well, can’t your mother drive her to the dates?”
“Ivy wants me to.”
“So?”
I raise my eyebrows. “You are such an only child.”
“Are you calling me spoiled?”
“Not spoiled . . . You just don’t know what it’s like to have a sibling who needs your help.”