the car and Leda yelps. And then she totally guilt-trips me: cocking her head to one side and looking at me with those big, black glassy eyes of hers.
She’s still shaken up by what happened earlier, when I nearly rammed us into an oncoming truck. The blood on her ear has dried into a crusty brown. I know she’s wondering where Blake is because the only reason we ever go to Dulles airport is to collect Blake. And I know that she doesn’t want to be alone. But what am I meant to do? There’s a big No Dogs Allowed sign outside the Mobil store.
She lets out a low, mournful whine.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay.’
I look over at Christopher and get an idea.
I open the boot, pull out a fluorescent yellow sash that Mom put in there along with a whole load of other safety stuff and tie it round Leda’s belly.
She starts whining again. Then she wriggles around under the sash like she’s got fleas.
‘It’s this or you stay in the car,’ I say.
Leda keeps snapping her head round and biting at the sash.
I clip on her lead and hand it to Christopher.
‘She’s yours,’ I say. ‘Look like you need her.’
‘Sorry?’
‘She’s your service dog.’
‘She is?’
‘Yep.’
If you think I’m a bad liar, try watching me act. It’s not pretty. I flunked every theatre class I took at school. Blake and Jude sucked up all of Mom and Dad’s artsy genes.
‘Okay,’ Christopher says, taking the lead.
I like that about him. That he kind of goes along with things without asking too many questions. That he stays calm. And trusts me.
‘You’d be good to have on a space mission,’ I say.
‘What?’
Did I actually say that out loud?
‘Oh, nothing. Just that you’re cool.’
He raises his bushy blond eyebrows. ‘I’m cool?’
‘Yeah. You are.’
I grab my telescope from the back seat, Christopher gives Leda’s lead a tug, and we head into the store.
The guy behind the counter looks at Leda and you can tell he’s about to say something, but then he sees Christopher and closes his mouth again. Christopher totally rocks the service dog thing. He pats Leda on the side and says, ‘good dog,’ and makes it seem like it’s totally normal that he’s bringing an animal into a no-animals-allowed place.
Blake once said that confidence was his biggest talent – that it was what made people listen to him and like him. That people are drawn to confidence because it makes them feel safe, like it’s making them stronger too. Blake said that confidence was even more important than being good at singing or playing the guitar or being cute. Though he has all of those things too, of course, so I’m not sure he’s really tested the theory.
I’ve got enough cash in my wallet to get us a couple of coffees from the dispenser. I get some chips too, from the guy at the counter. He’s so busy watching the highlights of the Red Sox game that he doesn’t even look away from the screen as he hands me the change.
We sit at a round, rickety metal table by the food machines, the only table in the store. I feed Leda some chips under the table. I know it’s not good for her but Leda looks like she could do with some comfort food. And, more to the point, Blake’s not here so he doesn’t get a say.
My phone sits on the table in front of me. It keeps lighting up. More messages from Mom.
Messages from Mom asking when Blake and I are going to show up.
I type a quick message: Blake messed up his flight. I’m waiting for him. We’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t stress, Mom. I pause and then add: Love you.
Then I switch off the phone.
I know Mom. On the face of it, she’ll seem totally calm. Make a joke of it – that it’s Blake’s thing – to turn up late. That we should have banked on him not making the family breakfast. That the main thing is that he’s there for the wedding. That I’ll get him there. Because that’s what I do.
But inside, she’ll be going crazy.
Because the events Mom plans never go wrong.
Mom sees every festive occasion (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and a few other religious festivals to which we have no known affiliation) as some kind of Olympic-level competition. When we were kids, she hand-sewed every one of our Halloween costumes and baked, carved and frosted every one of our birthday cakes and, every Christmas, she scales the roof putting up Christmas lights – bolder and brighter and blinkier than any of the neighbours.
She’s totally exhausting to live with. Like Martha Stewart on speed. Except that stuff isn’t even her day job. She’s an amazing lawyer too.
So, how does Mom do it all, I hear you ask? Simple: she never sleeps.
You’ve got it, Mom’s both a superhero and totally annoying.
So, you can imagine that her eldest daughter’s wedding was going to be a big deal. And it’s an even bigger deal because Mom knows that, more likely than not, she’ll only get one stab at it. Blake doesn’t believe in marriage – or anything else that involves long-term commitment: he’s had a steady stream of girlfriends since middle school. As for me, having a husband and kids doesn’t really mix with zooming off into space.
So if Blake and I mess up Jude’s wedding, she’ll be upset. Really upset.
I wonder how Dad’s handling everything right now. He’s the yin to Mom’s yang. The calm centre to her spinning world. He sits back and lets stuff wash over him. When Mom goes into intense mode, he slips away into his study and goes into Greek-myth world and doesn’t re-emerge until things have calmed down. When Mom’s doing my head in too, I sometimes join him in there. He lets me sit on the other side of his desk and read or work on my Physics homework and we pretend the rest of the world has dropped away. It makes me feel better, to sit there with Dad, even if we don’t say anything.
I think about calling him and telling him everything but then I know that’s not an option. Dad’s like me: can’t hide what he’s thinking. Mom would pick up on the fact that I’ve been in touch right away.
When Christopher’s finished his chips, he gets out his phone.
‘You said there was a bus from Knoxville to Atlanta?’ he says.
‘Yeah, there should be.’
He looks up a few more pages.
‘What time do you think we’ll
