I am not really into the Western look, but I like that part of Jules is still with me. If I get sad, all I have to do is sniff the shirt and I am back on her canopy bed, surrounded by rabbits.
“This is it!” Birdie says.
He slows down and proceeds to wedge our station wagon into the tiniest spot you ever saw, approximately the size of a postage stamp. Then he jumps out to direct the U-Move guys where to unload.
I am sweating all over. My thighs are sticking to the seat like a couple of honey hams. I turn to Mackey and say, “This is a great adventure. Full of exciting new experiences.”
He lets out a burp that smells like Egg McMuffin. Then he blows it in my face.
“You’re disgusting,” I say.
But now he is biting his nails down to bloody nubs, which tells me at least we’re thinking the same thing. Noooo!!! This cannot be happening! This sucks!
When we get out of the car there she is, hugging Birdie. This is probably the tenth time I’ve seen them hug in the past two weeks, and it still makes me sick to my stomach. On Wednesday, when she drove up to Maine to help us pack, I caught them making out in the garage, and I almost threw up.
The way they’re all over each other, you’d think he just got back from a war.
You can let go now. Seriously. You can let go of my dad. Any year now.
Finally, she does. She gives me and Mackey a big wave and starts walking over.
Here is the visual: head full of black curls, and short—even shorter than me. She barely comes up to Birdie’s armpit, but she’s curvy all over like the old Betty Boop cartoon he has framed in his shop. Therefore you understand right away what he sees in her. It is how all guys see: first, the body. Then, everything else.
“Hi, Evyn,” she says, reaching out a hand for me to shake. Her nails are short and square. “Good to see you again.”
I shake her hand, nod, try to smile. That is what Stella would do—smile at the woman we barely know, who is about to ruin everything.
“Mackey,” she says to my brother, shaking his hand, too. “I’m so happy you’re here.”
He nods, then starts ripping his fingernails to shreds again.
“Okay,” Eleni says, smiling. “Well…welcome!”
I stare at her teeth. There is lipstick on them, red.
One look at her and you do not think college professor. She has on black pants that are the low-rise variety. And high heels with the toes peeping through, red polish to match the lipstick. Her T-shirt is plain white, the same kind Birdie wears, only on her it is tight in a womanly way, and there are no stains.
I have to admit she looks good for a mother—somebody else’s. But not ours. Not now, not ever.
I know. She hasn’t tried to hug us yet. Smart woman. She’s playing it safe. But wait until they’re married, and she starts planting cheek kisses left and right. I give her three weeks before she says, You can call me Mom now, honey. And while you’re at it, scrub the toilet bowl.
That’s what happened to Tamara Schacter, this girl I know. The minute her dad got remarried, Kiki the Stepmonster took over her entire life and destroyed it.
If anything like that happens here, I will run away, which would make Jules very happy, I can tell you. I would go back to Maine and live with her. I have no clue how I’d get there, since I have exactly three dollars to my name. But I’d find a way, that much I promise you. I would definitely find a way.
CHAPTER FOUR
I have to share a room with two Gartos girls who are twins that I will never be able to tell apart—not that it matters because they haven’t exactly started talking to me yet. Their names are Clio and Cassandra, they are fifteen, and they are dark and curvy like their mom. Their hair is long, modelworthy, with center parts and no bangs.
I sit in the middle of the room on a cardboard box labeled EVYN CLOTHES, waiting for instructions. Finally, one of the twins turns to me and says, “That’s your bed, over there.” She points. “Storage drawers underneath.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay. Thanks.” Then, “You have a nice room.”
The other twin rolls her eyes and snorts. “Cassi has a thing for incense,” she says. “Just to warn you.”
I nod.
The first one says, “Shut up, Clio!” Then she turns to me. “Clio has a thing about not shaving any part of her body. She’s practically a gorilla.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well.”
I go to my bed by the window and stare out at the backyard, which is not a yard at all. It’s a microscopic stone patio, with a few potted plants and lawn chairs scattered around. Birdie told us we were moving to the city, and things would look different. Uh-huh. At home, our backyard was two acres with trees to climb, a gazebo Birdie built himself, a frog pond, and a vegetable garden. Clam had room to roam. This yard is a joke.
And the house, that’s another thing. It is four stories but it’s attached on either side to other people’s houses so there’s no side yard and no driveway. Birdie calls it a brownstone—don’t ask me why, since it is red brick.
Our old house had natural wood shingles and a porch swing. And out by the blueberry bushes, a birdhouse made to look exactly like ours. Picture a tiny wooden swing just for birds. That’s the kind of detail you miss, once you are gone. You miss your birds’ old porch swing.
“Where’s my red sweater?” one of the twins is saying now. “Did you take my red sweater?”
And the other one says, all sassy, “What red sweater?”
And the first one says, “The V-neck! You better not have taken it, Clio, I swear to God…”
Sometimes the feeling of missing a place is so big it makes you want to open your window and scream. But obviously I can’t do this because the window isn’t really mine. Neither is the bed I’m sitting on. Or the air.
Birdie comes to the door with a glass of water in his hand. His face is a million sweat beads to match his grungy shirt. But that doesn’t stop me from jumping up and hugging him.
“Birdie,” I say.
He squeezes me, kisses the top of my head. He smells like sweat and sawdust. I can feel his beard scruffing against my scalp. “Birdie,” I say again.
“Ev,” he says, pulling back and smiling. “Settling in?”
I look at him. His face says, I’ve never been happier. I grab his glass and take a sip. Then another.
“How goes it, girls?” Birdie says, turning to the sweater sisters, away from me. “Everything okay?”
One of the twins runs over and throws her arms around Birdie’s neck. “Al!”
Al, whoever he is, ruffles her hair. “Clio!” he says.
The other one jumps all over him. “Don’t let her touch you, Al! She’s a criminal! She’ll steal the shirt off your back!”
“Whoaaa,” Birdie says, pulling away. “A criminal? In my very own home?”
All three of them laugh, and you can see the triangle of love blooming right there in the room. In Al’s very own home.
“Hey, Al,” I say later. “What’s up, Al?”
And he says, “I’m still the same old Birdie.”
Meanwhile his new family is downstairs, chopping onions and firing up the grill in Al’s Diner.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bathtub, while Birdie brushes his teeth in the peach-colored sink. He is constantly brushing—and flossing, and picking, and fluoride rinsing. This is what happens when you have dentists for parents, like Birdie did. He knows way too much about gingivitis. On Halloween, the only thing he will hand out is apples: nature’s toothbrush.
“Birdie,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says, then spits in the sink.
“I don’t know if I can live here.”
Birdie turns to me. “This is a big transition, Ev. It’s going to take some time to get used to.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you willing to give it some time?”
I don’t know if I’m willing or not, but one thing I do know is I hate this peachy bathroom—and everything
in it.
“Question,” I say. “Why are all the toiletries freakishly large?”
Birdie holds up a ten-gallon bottle of mouthwash and grins.
“Seriously,” I say. “What’s up with that?”
Birdie unscrews the top and pours himself a cup. He says that a family as big as this one needs to shop in bulk. “B.J.’s,” he says. “I’ll take you sometime.”
Everything there is econo-sized, he tells me. You can even buy clothes.
I picture myself on the first day of school, econo-sized, like Paul Bunyan. XXXXXXL plaid shirt, clown boots, pencil the size of a telephone pole.
“Birdie?” I say.
“Yeah.” He is flossing now.
“How much time?”
“Huh?”
“How much time do I have to give it?” I say. “A week? Two weeks? A month? What?”
Finally, he walks over to me.
“What if this was a big mistake?” I say. “What then?”
Birdie puts his hands on my shoulders. “And what if it wasn’t?” he says. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, but what if this was the best thing that ever happened to us? Can you at least leave yourself open to the possibility that this could be great?”
I make my head nod. Sure, Al. Well, gotta go throw myself under a train now.
It’s dinner, and I am sitting between the oldest Gartos girl, Thalia, and the youngest, Phoebe. Mackey is flanked by the sweater twins, who are still squabbling. Not that he minds. He is like one of those cartoon cats, eyes popping out of his head every time he looks at one of them. Boooiiinnnggg!
Guys don’t look at me like that. Ever. But I’m used to it.
One time when Jules and I went to the mall, a bunch of jocks in letter jackets wolf whistled as we walked by—at both of us, I thought. They came over, but only to talk to Jules. I noticed they never looked directly at her face but at her white tank top, where all the action was.
“Guys love you,” I said later, but Jules just laughed and said, “Guys love anything with mammaries.”
Right now the only person at the table with mammaries smaller than mine is Phoebe, and she’s six. The first thing she said when I sat down was, “Are you a boy?” and I said, “It’s Evyn with a Y, not Evan with an A”—my stock answer, which doesn’t explain such problems as my hair (chop cut), my outfit (Mackey’s old sweats), or my chest (non-existent).
“I have three sisters,” she tells me. “And two brothers.”
“Yes,” I say. “I know.”
The brothers are sitting across from me at this moment. The younger one, Ajax (if you can believe that anyone would name their son after a cleanser), is my age. He is shaped like a brick, and all he talks about so far is sports. Apparently, he is the star forward on the eighth-grade soccer team, and we are all supposed to watch him play in a scrimmage on Saturday. Goody.
The older one is a different story. Ever since he sat down I haven’t been able to stop sneaking glances at him. His name is Linus, and I know what you’re thinking, but you are wrong. This Linus is no thumb-sucker. He’s nineteen years old, first off, with stubble on his chin. Also he is tall, with big shoulders, brown eyes like M&M’s, and dark curls flopping on his forehead. I think about those curls all through dinner—how it might feel to grab hold of one of them and pull, then watch it spring back into place.
I have to pinch myself. No drooling at the table.
Linus eats everything Eleni puts on his plate: olives, stuffed grape leaves, stinky cheese. He has lamb juice on his chin when he says, “Why can’t you cook in my dining hall?”
Eleni pats his arm and says, “Move home.”
It kills me that he lives in a dorm, not with us.
Linus laughs. “How can I move home? All the beds are taken.”
You can have my bed, I think. I’ll sleep in the storage drawers.
Then I open my mouth. “So. Linus. What’s your major?” This is the question grown-ups are always asking Jules’s sister, Agnes, whenever she comes home from Yale.
Linus looks at me for the first time, and his face says, Who are you?
I look down at my plate, which has suddenly become fascinating; it’s not just a pile of lamb, it is a landscape of pink. Not unlike my face.
“I’m thinking about poli-sci,” Linus says. “Maybe econ. I don’t know.”
He tells us he isn’t sure what he wants to do when he graduates. “I don’t really see myself in politics,” he says. “Or crunching numbers all day. I’ll probably move to Vail and be a professional ski bum.”
I went skiing once. With Jules, when her dad got free passes. My first time down the mountain I thought I was doing great—taking my time, making nice wide turns—when some guy in gold snowpants whizzed past me, yelling, “This isn’t the giant slalom trail, moron!” When I tried to flip him the bird, I wiped out and broke my arm.
Professional ski bum. Huh.
I picture Linus at the top of a snowy peak, holding a cup of change and one of those homemade signs. WILL SLALOM FOR FOOD.
Birdie says, “There are worse things to do with a college degree.”
“True,” I say.
Now everyone is looking at me, so I am forced to continue. “You could be a pirate.”
Linus smiles when I say this. His teeth are as white as a box of Chiclets—a dentist’s dream. Linus has dream teeth. When he says to me, “Very funny,” my stomach jumps up and does the mambo.
CHAPTER FIVE
In the morning, I go up to the attic and stand around in my underwear. This is because I’m getting measured for the ugliest bridesmaid’s dress in history. Thalia, the eighteen-year-old, is in charge. She says there’s only one way to ensure a perfect fit. “Don’t move,” she tells me. And I obey. Thalia has a way of making people listen. There are a lot of sharp pins in her mouth, for one thing. And she has a voice like a principal. You don’t want to end up in her office after school.
There are also many things a guy would fall in love with. Hair: a brown velvet curtain. Eyes: two black pools. Tan skin. She’s wearing a camisole with a flowy skirt and bare feet, and she walks like a ballerina—toes turned out.
“Don’t move,” she says again, through her mouthful of pins. “I might stick you.”
I see that her eyebrows meet in the middle.
“I’m not,” I say.
She winds a strip of cloth around my torso and yanks it tight.
Oh, this dress is going to be so hideous. First, it’s orange. It is the kind of orange that makes you want to say, “Hey! Is there a pumpkin festival this afternoon? Great!” Plus, it’s toga style. I know all about this from Latin class, where we learned how to make togas for extra credit. They are not flattering, even if mine did win second prize.
“This cut is fantastic on you,” Thalia tells me, before I can run out of the room. She pulls the cloth tighter. “You have a great little figure.”
I look down at my flat chest, even flatter now, and sigh.
“Almost done,” she says, jabbing me in the ribs with a pin.
“Ow!”
“Oh! Did I stick you?”
I look at her face to see if she’s sorry.
“I can’t believe my mother is making me do this,” she says. “I take one sewing class, and she thinks I’m an expert.” Her eyebrow is furrowed. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I tell her.
“Well, you know what they say. Beauty is pain.” Thalia turns me by the shoulders to the full-length mirror. “Ta daaaa!”
We both stare at me.
Then Thalia adds a wreath of flowers to my head—orange and yellow and brown all strung together. “Gorgeous,” she says, and for a minute I actually feel it. I am the queen of the pumpkin parade. I am riding atop a leaf-covered float, waving daintily to the crowd. Tossing candy corn in the air like confetti.
Maybe at the wedding, Linus will take one look at me and think, Shazam! At the reception, he will walk over, all shy and handsome in his tux, curls
bouncing on his forehead. Good evening, Evyn, he will say. Then, May I have this dance?
Thalia squeezes my arm. “You and Phoebe are going to be adorable.”
“Adorable,” I repeat. Huh.
“Have you seen the flower girl baskets?” Thalia smiles, and I see that her front teeth overlap. “You’ll love them,” she says, meaning it.
I open my mouth but nothing comes out.
Flower girl baskets.
Flower. Girl. Baskets.
I am not a bridesmaid. I am a flower girl.
“I’m thirteen,” I say.
Thalia raises her eyebrow.
“Never mind,” I mumble.
“Thirteen is tough,” she tells me. She takes the wreath off my head and begins packing it in tissue. “I remember thirteen.”
“Right,” I say. I use my most sarcastic voice because I’m thinking, You don’t remember squat.
When I tell Mackey, he says, “Mmph.”
This is how he responds in our conversations, like a caveman. Also, he never looks at me. He’s always staring at a computer screen, or at one of those books with dragons and amulets on the cover, and titles you can’t pronounce.
Today it’s The Sword of Arzaksband, which he is reading from the top bunk, while his new roommate, Cleanser Boy, is at soccer practice.
I am sitting in a galaxy far, far away from the bottom bunk. Because—I can tell just by looking—it smells like socks.
“I’m thirteen,” I say. “Thirteen, Mack.”
Mackey flips a page, says, “Hrmp.”
He obviously doesn’t care, but I keep going—because it feels good to let it out. I say, “These people are idiots.” Then I feel bad. “I mean, don’t they know I’m too old to be a flower girl?”
Mackey stops reading and tries some English. “I have to wear a tux,” he says.
I say, “Togas and penguin suits don’t go together.”
He shrugs, starts to read again—his way of telling me the conversation is over.
“So,” I say. “What are we going to do about this?”
Silence.
“Mack,” I say.