The Boyfriend Thief

CHAPTER 6





“So, Avery,” Trisha said as she smiled across the table at me over the vase of fresh lilies Dad had bought earlier that day. “Your father tells me you’re in the running for valedictorian of your class?”

I’d finally had a night free from hot dogs, screaming kids, and Elliott Reiser. A brand new book on disorders of the spine sat untouched on my bedside table, waiting for me to crack it open.

But no. Dad ambushed me with his other plans. When Ian and I had arrived home from school, Dad had called to say that we were to be dressed nicely and ready for dinner at six-thirty with his girlfriend.

His girlfriend. People over the age of forty shouldn’t be allowed to have girlfriends or boyfriends. They should be friends, nothing more.

Trisha Montgomery was a fifth grade teacher at Willowbrook Elementary. She didn’t look like the red-eyed, rabid beast with huge horns I’d half-expected. Instead, she looked nice in a floral print sundress and gold sandals, and her light brown hair was piled up on her head in a messy twist that probably had taken a lot longer to make perfectly messy than what it looked. One of those hairstyles I could never master the right balance between messy and styled.

The neckline of her dress, however, was slightly too low, especially for an elementary school teacher. I’d had to kick Ian in the leg several times when I caught him staring.

“Maybe,” I answered, shrugging. “You never know. A rocket scientist in training could transfer to my school next year and knock me down a rank or two.”

Dad laughed. “Avery is being modest. She’s always had excellent grades. She hopes to be a doctor.”

“She’s going to Costa Rica,” Ian the Suck Up added. “To help poor people.” Throw a pair of breasts in his face and Ian forgot all about standing united as a family against the intruder.

Trisha’s smile widened. “That sounds awesome. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

Awesome. My dad’s girlfriend, who had to be at least thirty-eight, actually said the word awesome. I was never using that word again now that I’d heard how ridiculous it sounded coming out of Trisha’s mouth.

“Well, maybe she’s going,” Dad corrected. His smile faded slightly and his body tensed, as it always did whenever the subject of my going to Costa Rica was brought up. “It’s not decided for sure yet.”

Dad didn’t like to talk about the trip. He supported my dream of becoming a doctor, but he didn’t like the idea of me going so far away. I knew a big part of it was because of Mom. What if I went away and decided not to come back, like she did?

It was in my genes, but that part of my DNA would never be allowed to take over and hurt anyone. That adventurous spirit that made stupid mistakes could be controlled and killed. The difference between my mom and me was that I had complete control over any outside distractions.

I straightened the spoon on the table, making sure it was exactly parallel to my plate. Then I moved my water glass over half an inch to the perfect position three inches from the top right side of my plate. Total order.

“I’m going,” I told him. “This summer. I have almost all of the money I need.”

Dad took a sip from his water and then swallowed, setting the glass carefully back on the table. “Let’s talk about this another time,” he said.

I couldn’t bite back my words even though I knew this was not the time to have this discussion. “You treat me like I’m a child.” My anger at Dad’s unexpected dinner guest made me unable to stay quiet. If Trisha wanted to be a part of this family, let her see what we were really like behind the fresh lilies and grilled steak. “I’m more than capable of making major decisions like this for myself.”

Ian bent over his plate and shoveled beans into his mouth as if he couldn’t eat fast enough. Whenever Dad and I argued, Ian would eat. After our mom left, he started a habit of hiding boxes of cookies and snack cakes in his room. Dad didn’t see anything wrong with this behavior, but I hunted down the junk food every few months and tossed it out.

I scowled at my dad, but he stared down at his plate as he ate, pointedly ignoring me as Ian stuffed his cheeks like a chipmunk preparing for winter.

“So,” Trisha said after a moment of uncomfortable silence, “are you seeing anyone special at school?” This question was apparently directed at me as she cut her steak into bite-sized pieces.

What was with the personal interrogation? I was in the middle of a never-ending game of 20 Questions that I was not in the mood to play. Especially with Trisha’s cleavage staring across the table at me. Ian’s gaze wandered away from his plate and I delivered another kick to his shin.

“No,” I answered. “Not seeing anyone.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Trisha said. “You never know when Mr. Right may show up. He could be that guy you’ve always thought of as a friend.” She reached over and twined her fingers into Dad’s. “Your father and I were friends for a while before he asked me out. Did he tell you how we met?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued on, her face beaming. “It was at The Percolator. We always ordered the same drink and muffin, and one day, after getting tired of waiting for your dad to make the first move, I said something about it. After that, we met at the café each morning and talked for weeks before he got up the nerve to ask me out.”

I fought hard to resist the urge to gag. I did not want to hear details of my father’s love life. Not even the seemingly innocent ones that took place at The Percolator.

“Avery is too young to be thinking about romance,” Dad said. “She has a bright future ahead of her. No need to have her distracted by some boy.”

“Oh, Mitch,” Trisha said, rolling her eyes toward me, as if trying to let me know she thought my dad was so out of touch. “It’s perfectly natural for girls to have an interest in boys. Even the smart ones.”

Was this Let’s All Talk About Avery Day? Time for a change of subject. “So how’s your art project coming along?” I asked my brother.

“Great,” Ian said through a mouthful of food. “I’ve got a lot of good pictures.”

My subject change worked. Trisha turned toward Ian, her eyes shining. She was certainly an equal opportunity brown-noser. “What kind of project are you doing?”

Ian jumped up from his seat. “I’ll show you.”

He dashed down the hall and returned a moment later with a shoebox. Pushing his empty plate out of the way, Ian opened the box and spread dozens of pictures across the table.

“I’m planning to make a collage of people around town. ‘Every Day Life in Willowbrook.’ It will be random people I see all over town doing the things they always do. I’m thinking this one will be the centerpiece.” He pointed at a picture of the old woman who ran the bakery, picking her nose behind the counter.

Trisha giggled. “Well, that’s certainly eye-catching. These are fantastic pictures. You have an eye for how to capture people in general life settings.”

Ian beamed. “Thanks!”

“You’re very lucky, Mitch,” Trisha said as she sifted through the photos. “You have two very intelligent and talented kids.”

“I am lucky,” he said, smiling wide at all of us.

Through the blur of tears in my eyes, Trisha could almost pass as my mom. They were the same build—or at least, Trisha was about the same size as what I remembered my mom to be before she left. This could almost be a typical family night dinner instead of the waste of time it really was.

The one thing I had learned in my sixteen years was that you couldn’t count on anyone to stick around. Opening yourself up only caused trouble in the end.

And tonight, trouble came dressed in a too-revealing sundress.

I stood up suddenly and said, “I’m going to my room. I have some homework I need to work on.”

“I thought you did that earlier,” Ian said. “I saw you at the table working on it.”

Add another item to the list of why my brother would never live past puberty before I clobbered him. “I have other homework I need to do.”

“How much homework does one person have?” Ian shuffled through his pictures again and pulled out another one to show Trisha. “Take a look at this. One of my best shots, I think.”

No one else tried to stop me as I slipped from the room and disappeared down the hall. They were all absorbed in Ian now, having forgotten about me and my bad attitude for the moment.

I headed to my room, feeling more than a bit annoyed. I wanted to slam doors or punch walls or something. Focus, I told myself, closing my eyes and letting out a deep breath.

My footsteps traced a line back and forth across my room as I recited the names of the bones in my hands. “Distal phalanges,” I muttered.

Why did Dad insist on letting his hormones ruin our lives?

“Intermediate phalanges,” I said, moving to the next bone.

Mom left a big, gaping hole when she took off. It had taken a lot of work to begin to repair the damage. We didn’t need someone else coming along and ripping it open again. What we needed were answers to the questions left behind.

I reached the end of my room and spun on my heel, marching back the other way. “Proximal phalanges.”

Ian and I did not need a replacement mother. Hadn’t I done a good enough job taking over that role? What was wrong with the way things were? I had done everything possible to make up for Mom not being here. After Mom left, it had taken Ian almost a year before he was able to let Dad leave the house without him bursting into tears and insisting that Dad would go away too. We hadn’t had a family vacation in years, because there wasn’t ever enough extra money to take one. I dedicated myself to my schoolwork to ensure I’d have high enough grades so I’d get a lot of scholarships and be able to pay my way to college without straining Dad any more than he already was. Then I worked to earn enough money to buy the things I needed and wanted so I wouldn’t have to bother Dad with them. I cleaned and cooked when I wasn’t working, I paid the bills and made sure everything in this household ran efficiently, made sure Ian didn’t walk around in grungy clothes and survive on only pizza and cheeseburgers.

“Metacarpals.”

I was the one who had poured over her old journals, her letters, even the grocery notes she’d left stuffed in drawers, hunting down the most logical places she could be and narrowing the list to the five marked on my map. I was the one who had figured out Costa Rica was the most likely place, the one she talked about the most, the one where she dreamed of living hidden away on a lush mountain.

But it wasn’t good enough. Nothing I’d done had ever been good enough. Not good enough to keep my dad from wanting a new mom in the family, and not good enough to make my real mom want to stay.

“Carpals,” I whispered, letting out a long breath. My mom was the one who had gotten me interested in medicine. I could remember looking through an old medical book with her when I was little, learning the names of various bones and organs. It became one of the special things between us, and she would surprise me sometimes with a new medical book we could look through together. Mom had wanted to become a doctor once, when she was a kid. “Then I got married,” she would always say whenever I asked why she didn't go to medical school. “And had you and Ian.”

That was the first time I'd felt like I'd done something wrong just by being born.

After she left, I poured through the medical books she'd left behind, searching for an answer as to what had happened to the mother I'd known.

I moved my fingers in a steady rhythm, feeling the pieces work. Smooth. Controlled. Parts of the body that could be seen and studied made sense. The other parts—the hormones—were unpredictable.

The men of this house would be lost causes if it weren’t for me. I had to be the voice of reason for everyone around here and remind them about the effect hormones had on our ability to think clearly. We didn’t need anyone. I could be valedictorian, get into medical school, and pay for the trip to Costa Rica myself. I could hunt down the answers we needed so we could heal all the wounds and close up the past.

Once things ended between Trisha and my dad, as I was certain they would before too much longer, I would be the one to swoop in, pick up the pieces, and take care of everything.

Again.