When the doorbell chimes, Mom abandons her library for the first time all day. The focus she’s devoted to her cowboy-in-lust manuscript has worked to my advantage. She has no idea I came home from the beach upset, no idea I spent all day in my dungeon room, editing photographs, perusing back issues of National Geographic, and napping with Bambi, all in an effort to distract myself from wounds reopened.
Janie joins me on the sofa for an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while her mama and mine pore over the calendar tacked to the inside of our pantry door. On it are Mom’s do-not-disturb writing blocks and Aud’s shifts at Camembert, plus random appointments and commitments any of the four of us might have, like the New Student Orientation my mom’s been hassling me about. We had a similar calendar in San Francisco during the time Audrey and Janie lived with us—it was the schedule that governed our lives. I have a very vivid memory of my mom pulling it off the wall, bending it in half, and shoving it deep into the trash can, choking on sobs, the day Aud and Janie moved to Cypress Beach.
Here we are, together again.
“Turn up Mickey, Auntie,” Janie says as I weave braids into her corn-silk hair.
I oblige and stamp a kiss onto her rosy cheek. “You’re my favorite. Did you know that?”
“You’re my favorite, too,” she says.
I wrap a pink elastic around a final braid, then circle my arms around her. We watch Mickey and his gang use an assortment of Mouseketools to solve an inane mystery, but I keep hearing Mati’s rain-shower voice, two words spoken over and over—Kabul, Afghanistan—pronounced with intuitive apprehension. I fled the beach stunned, drowning in memories of the time surrounding Nick’s deployment and death, but now, in hindsight, I’m not surprised. Deep down I knew, somehow, that a friendship with Mati was too good to be true.
“Auntie?” Janie’s looking up at me, her little mouth drawn with worry. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is over, and I’ve been staring at a commercial advertising a juicer.
“Sorry, girlie,” I tell her. “Let’s go tell Nana and your mama that we’re ready to eat.”
Dinner is a quiet affair. Audrey’s tired. Mom’s got glassy eyes, which means she’s got her mind wrapped around her manuscript. And I’m deep-down miserable now that all the ways I miss my brother have been dredged up and splayed out.
I’m picking apart an egg roll when Mom pipes up. “Iris stopped by today,” she says in a singsong tone that implores, Ask me why.
“Why?” I oblige, swallowing a sigh.
“To bring more hydrangeas. And … Her grandson was with her.”
Audrey’s face lights up. “She came by Camembert with him last night. They had dinner together. He’s right around your age, Elise, and he’s cute.”
“Very cute,” my mom says discerningly.
I raise a reproachful eyebrow. “Mom. Don’t be creepy. I met him this morning. His name’s Ryan, he’s a year older than me, and he lives in Texas, so a relationship, unfortunately, isn’t in the cards.”
“Who needs a relationship?” Audrey says. “You guys can have”—she clears her throat theatrically—“fun. All-summer-long, no-strings-attached fun. But be safe. Nobody wants you to have this guy’s baby.”
My mom blanches, though I’m not sure why; when Audrey and Nick were my age, they had a lot of—ahem—fun, mostly behind his locked bedroom door, and they weren’t very quiet about it, either. Maybe this is one of those instances that’s different with daughters, an expression I’ve heard an annoying number of times in my seventeen years.
Mom reaches over to squeeze my hand, shooting a glower in Audrey’s direction. “I think it’d be wonderful for you to get to know him, Lissy. Iris and her garden probably aren’t his idea of a dream summer vacation.”
The sigh I tried to suppress earlier works its way out. “I already told him I’d show him around,” I say, meaning to end the conversation. But Mom and Audrey jump on this tidbit like Bambi on a Milk Bone.
“A new friend!” Mom says.
“A match made in heaven!” Aud says.
“Oh my God,” I say.
“Dessert?” Janie says.
“Dessert’s a good idea.” I grab for the bag of fortune cookies in the middle of the table and pass them around, glad to be done with talk of Ryan. Poor guy—he’d probably be mortified to know he’s the topic of conversation around the Parker dinner table.
Audrey cracks open her cookie and reads from its skinny slip of white paper. “‘You will conquer obstacles to find success.’” She snorts, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “Obstacles … That’s an understatement. Jocelyn, what’s yours say?”
Mom pulls her reading glasses from the nest of her hair, perching them on her nose. “‘You have a deep interest in all that is artistic.’”
“Nana is a writer,” Janie says. “Isn’t that like being artistic?”
“Yep,” I say. “It’s the perfect fortune for her.”
“Read mine, Auntie,” Janie says, pushing her slip of paper into my hand.
I clear my throat. “‘Everyone agrees. You are the best.’ Aww, that’s a fact, girlie.”
“A statement of truth,” Audrey says, smiling. “Okay, Lissy, you’re up.”
I pluck my fortune from the crumbles of my cookie and read: “‘A very attractive stranger has a message for you.’”
I should’ve read it to myself first—I should have only read it to myself because, God …
Really?
“A very attractive stranger,” Audrey says gleefully. “Iris’s grandson! I wonder what his message could be?”
Conversation continues, mostly about Ryan and how very attractive he is, which is so silly. None of us knows anything about him. And truthfully, he couldn’t be further from my thoughts.
The moment I read my fortune—attractive, stranger, message—I thought of Mati.
elise
After Aud and Janie leave, I take a bath, soaking until my fingers prune. Then I bury myself between my sheets. I try to think happy thoughts—not about how my parents used to argue on the phone at night, when my mom thought my brother and I were sleeping, and not about how news of Nick’s death came after a night as long as this one, a vehement knock that changed everything.
Instead, I picture Ryan, blue eyes hemmed in by the dark frames of his glasses. I try to get excited about the wide-open possibility his arrival promises and I feel … nothing at all. I think of Mati, and how his presence fills me with curiosity and exuberance and a strange sort of nostalgia. Then I remember that he’s from Afghanistan—that he’ll almost certainly return to Afghanistan—and all that hope-anticipation-optimism disappears like a sandcastle overtaken by a wave.
Very late, when the world outside my window is quiet, I drift off.
In the morning, after a fitful sleep that leaves me groggy, Bambi and I are running behind. She’s wound up—she probably has to pee—and she’s the very opposite of patient as I throw a baggy sweater over a pair of leggings. My hair goes up in its usual twist and we’re out the door to the tune of a distracted, “Have fun and stay safe,” shouted from Mom’s library.
I nearly lose my footing as I step onto the porch; for once the sun is out, and it’s blinding. I debate going back for sunglasses, but Bambi’s turning excited circles and I don’t have the heart to crush her fragile doggy spirit by holding us up any longer. “All right, girl, let’s go,” I say, holding out a new tennis ball.
We’re headed down the cobblestones when Ryan’s head pops up from behind the box hedge. I jump back, slapping a hand over my racing heart.
“Oh, sorry!” He pulls off a pair of gardening gloves and grins. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay. You surprised me, is all.”
Bambi drops her ball to yelp about the delay.
Ryan turns his smile on her. His fair hair’s smartly combed, and he’s wearing a Texas-y plaid button-down. Combined with his glasses, it’s a cool look. “Where’re y’all off to?”
“The beach. Bambi fetches and I walk.”
“Sounds fun.”
He’s casting you should invite me vibes like the sun’s casting warmth, so I oblige, waving a hand westward, toward the Pacific. “Do you want to come along?”
He eyes his gardening gloves. “Forgo the weed-pulling? Man, I don’t know.…”
Bambi barks, picks up her ball, then drops it on the path to bark again.