shoving away from the table and stalking out of the kitchen.
“Gross,” Harry says, doing the same, after accidentally knocking over his orange juice – and ignoring it.
How does Mom stand this? I pinch the muscles at the base of my neck, hard, close my eyes. Push away the most treacherous thought of all: Why does Mom stand this?
George is still doggedly trying to eat a spoonful of oatmeal, one rolled oat at a time.
“Don’t bother, G. You still like peanut butter, right?”
Breathing out a long sigh, world-weary at four, George rests his freckled cheek against his hand, watching me with a focus that reminds me of Jase. “You can make diamonds out of peanut butter. I readed about it.”
“Read,” I say automatically, replenishing the raisins I’d sprinkled on the tray of Patsy’s high chair.
“Yucks a dis,” she says, picking each raisin up with a delicate pincer grip and dropping it off the side of the high chair.
“Do you think we could make diamonds out of this peanut butter?” George asks hopefully as I open the jar of Jif.
“I wish, Georgie,” I say, looking at the empty cabinet over the window, and then noticing a dark blue Jetta pull into our driveway, the door kick open, a tall figure climb out, the sun hitting his rusty hair, lighting it like a match.
Fabulous. Exactly what we need for the flammable family mix. Tim Mason. The human equivalent of C-4.
We walk up the creaky garage stairs and Jase hauls a key out of his pocket, unlocks the door, flips on the lights. I brush past him and drop my cardboard box on the ground. Joel’s old apartment is low-ceilinged and decorated with milk crate bookcases, ugly couch, mini-fridge, microwave, denim beanbag chair with Sox logo, walls covered in Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and all that – tits everywhere – and a gigantic iron weight rack with a shit-ton of weights.
“This is where Joel took all those au pairs? I thought he had better game than this massive cliché.”
Jase grimaces. “Welcome to Bootytown. Supposedly the nannies never minded because they expected it of American boys. Want me to help yank ’em down?”
“Nah, I can always count body parts if I have trouble sleeping.”
After a brief scope-out of the apartment, during which he makes a face and empties a few trash cans, he asks, “This gonna work for you?”
“Absolutely.” I reach into my pocket, pull out the lined paper list I snatched off my bulletin board, and slap it on the refrigerator, adios-ing a babe in hot pink spandex.
Jase scans my sign, shakes his head. “Mase . . . you know you can come on over anytime.”
“I’ve been to boarding school, Garrett. Not like I’m afraid of the dark.”
“Don’t be a dick,” he says mildly. He points in the direction of the bathroom. “The plumbing backs up sometimes. If the plunger doesn’t work, text, I can fix it. I repeat, you’re always welcome to head to our house. Or join me on the pre-dawn job. I gotta pick up Samantha now. She ended up not going to Vermont. Ride along?”
“With the perfect high school sweethearts? Nah. I think I’ll stay and see if I can break the plunger. Then I’ll text you.”
He flips me off, grins, and leaves.
Time to get my ass to a meeting. Better that than alone with a ton of airbrushed boobs and my unfiltered thoughts.
When I walk up the Garretts’ overgrown lawn after the meeting – which only partially took the edge off – the first thing I see is Jase’s older sister, Alice, tanning in the front yard.
In a bikini.
Shockwave scarlet.
Straps untied.
Olive skin.
Toenails painted the color of fireballs.
Can I say there are few things on earth that cheer me up more than Alice Garrett in a bikini?
Except Alice without a bikini. Which I’ve never seen, but I’ve a hell of an imagination.
She’s almost asleep, in a tiny blue-and-green lawn chair, her head and her long, always-morphing hair (brown with blond streaks right now) flopping heavily to one side, curling shorter in the late-summer heat. Because I’m unscrupulous, I flop down on the grass next to her and take a good long look.
Oh, Alice.
After a few seconds, she opens her eyes, squints, flips her hand to her forehead to block the sun, stares at me.
“Now,” I tell her, “would be an excellent time to avoid unsightly tan lines. I stand ready to assist.”
“Now,” she says, with that killer smile, “would be an even better time to avoid lame come-ons.”
“Aw, Alice, I swear I’ll be there to soothe your regret for wasting time once you realize I’ve been right for you all along.”
“Tim, I’d chew you up and spit you out.” She slants forward, yanks the straps of her bikini behind her neck, ties them, and settles back. God. I almost can’t breathe.
But I can talk.
I can always talk.
“We could progress to that, Alice. But maybe we start with some gentle nibbling?”
Alice shuts her eyes, opens them again, and gives me an indecipherable look.
“Why don’t I scare you?” she asks.
“You do. You’re scary as hell,” I assure her. “But that works for me. Completely.”
She’s about to say something, but the family van pulls in just then, even more battered than usual. The right front fender has flaking paint. They’ve tried to put some rust primer around the sliding back door. The side looks like it’s been keyed. Both hubcap covers on this side are missing. Alice starts to get up, but I rest my hand on a smooth, brown shoulder, press her down.
“On it.”
She squints up at me, head cocked to the side, rubs her bottom lip with her finger. Then settles back in the chair. “Thanks.”
Mrs Garrett, wearing a bright blue beach cover-up type thing and a wigged-out face, climbs out of the van.
“Everything okay?” I ask, sort of a joke since there’s nothing but ear-melting screeching when I slide open the side door. Patsy, George, and Harry are all red-faced and sweaty. Patsy’s mouth is open in a huge O and she’s a sobbing mess. George also looks teary-eyed. Harry’s more
