It’s the beginning of winter break, otherwise known as The Return of Brian, and the off-the-hook smell wafting out of the kitchen has brain-commanded me out of my chair and down the hallway.
“Is that you?” Jude yells from her room. “C’mere, please.”
I walk into her room, where she’s reading Grandma’s bible in bed. She’s been trying to find some hogwash in it that will bring Dad back.
She hands me a scarf. “Here,” she says. “Tie me to the bedpost.”
“What?”
“It’s the only solution. I need a little reminder not to be weak and go in the kitchen. I’m not giving Mom the satisfaction of eating one bite. How come she decides to become Julia Child now? You shouldn’t eat anything she makes either. I know you got into that chicken pot pie after we came home from Dad’s last night. I saw.” She gives me a hard look. “Promise not one morsel?” I nod, but there’s not a chance in hell I’m not having whatever it is that’s filling the house with this supernaturally awesome smell. “I mean it, Noah.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Only one wrist so I can turn the pages.” As I tie her wrist to the bedpost, she goes on. “It smells like pie, apple or pear, or maybe turnovers, or a crumble. God, I love crumbles. Of all unfairness. Who knew she even knew how to bake?” She turns the page of Grandma’s bible. “Be strong,” she says after me as I head for the door.
I salute her. “Aye, Captain.”
I’ve become a double agent. This is how it’s been since Dad left: After eating takeout with Jude and Dad in his dead-body blue hotel studio, I, on arriving home, wait for the moment Jude locks herself in her room to chat with Spaceboy, who is Zephyr! Not Brian! and then head for the kitchen to feast with Mom. But whether I’m sitting with Dad watching Animal Planet, breathing gray air, pretending not to notice he’s all folded up like a chair, or with Mr. Grady in the art room making the final touches on my CSA portfolio paintings, or learning salsa dancing in the kitchen with Mom while soufflés rise, or playing How Would You Rather Die? with Jude while she sews, I’m really only doing one thing. I’m a human hourglass: Waiting, waiting, waiting for Brian Connelly to come home.
Any day, hour, minute, second now.
Jude’s right. On the kitchen counter this morning is indeed an apple pie with a golden roof over it and a plate of turnovers.
Mom’s at the counter kneading dough, her face spotted in flour.
“Oh good,” she says. “Scratch my nose, will you? I’ve been going crazy.”
I walk over to her and scratch her nose. “Harder,” she says. “That’s it. Thanks.”
“It’s weird to scratch someone else’s nose,” I tell her.
“Just wait until you’re a parent.”
“It’s much squishier than it looks,” I say. She smiles at me and it sends a warm summer breeze around the room.
“You’re happy,” I say, but only meant to think it. My new trombone of a voice makes it sound like an accusation, which I guess it is. Not only is she happier since Dad’s been gone, she’s actually in a room when she’s in a room. She’s returned from the Milky Way. She even got drenched along with Jude and me in a downpour the other day.
She stops kneading.
“How come you didn’t cook like this when Dad lived here?” I ask, instead of what I want to ask: How come you don’t miss him? How come he had to leave for you to become normal again?
She sighs. “I don’t know.” She traces her finger through a mound of flour, starts spelling her name. Her face is closing up.
“It smells incredible,” I say, wanting her happiness back, needing it and hating it at the same time.
She smiles faintly. “Have a piece of pie and a turnover. I won’t tell your sister.”
I nod, grab a knife and cut an enormous slice, a quarter of the pan practically, and put it on a dinner plate. Then I take a turnover. Since I’ve become King Kong, I can’t get enough food in me ever. I’m heading over to the table with my full plate, the smell making me want to walk on my hands, when Jude’s bad mood ambles in.
The eye-roll is a 10.5 on the Richter. The Big One. California has slipped into the ocean. She puts her hands on her hips, exasperated. “What’s your problem, Noah?”
“How’d you get free anyway,” I say, my mouth full of turnover.
“Free?” Mom asks.
“I tied her up so she wouldn’t be tempted to come in here and eat.”
Mom laughs. “Jude, I know you’re furious with me. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a turnover for breakfast.”
“Never!” She walks across the room and takes a box of Cheerios from a cabinet and pours some into a sad old bowl.
“I think I used up all the milk,” Mom says.
“Of course you did!” Jude cries, sounding a lot like a braying donkey. She sits down next to me, crunching and martyring her way through the bowl of dry cereal, eyeing my plate the whole time. When Mom’s back is turned, I slide it over to her with the fork and she shovels pastry in until her mouth is stuffed, then slides it back over.
It’s this moment that Brian Connelly comes through the door.
“I knocked,” he says nervously. He’s older, taller, hatless, and he’s cut his hair—the white bonfire is gone.
I involuntarily jump up, then sit down, then jump up again, because this is what normal people do when someone walks into a room, right? Jude kicks me under the table, gives me a look that says: Stop being a freak, then tries to smile at Brian, but her mouth is too stuffed with pie, so she makes a weird disfigured chipmunk face at him. I certainly can’t talk because I’m too busy jumping up and down.
Fortunately, there’s Mom.
“Well, hello.” She wipes her hands on her apron, walks over, and shakes his hand. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you,” he replies. “Good to be back.” He takes a deep breath. “We can smell what you’re baking all the way down at our house. We were salivating over our cornflakes.”
“Please,” Mom says. “Help yourself. I’m going through a little cooking phase. And certainly bring something back for your mother.”
Brian looks at the counter with longing. “Maybe later.” His eyes travel to me. He licks his bottom lip and the gesture, so familiar, makes my heart lurch.
Somewhere in between up and down, I’ve frozen: humpbacked, arms swinging monkey-like. I register how crazy I look in the puzzled expression on his face. I choose up. Whew. Up was the right move! I’m standing. I’m a person on legs, which are designed for this purpose. And he’s five feet away, now four, three, two—
He’s in front of me.
Brian Connelly is standing in front of me.
What’s left of his hair is a deep buttery yellow. His eyes, his eyes, his amazing squinting eyes! are going to make me lose consciousness. There’s nothing hiding them anymore. I’m surprised all the passengers didn’t follow him off the plane and aren’t waiting outside the door. I want to draw him. Now. I want to do everything. Now.
(PORTRAIT, SELF-PORTRAIT: Two Boys Racing into Brightness)
I try to calm myself by counting his freckles to see if there are any that are new.
“Stare much?” he says quietly so only I hear. Practically the first words he ever said to me, all those months ago. His lips curl into the half smile. I catch his tongue poised on the precipice between his front teeth.
“You look different,” I say, wishing it didn’t come out so dreamily.
“Me? Dude, you’re huge. I think you’re bigger than me. How’d that happen?”
I glance down. “Yeah, super far from the toes now.” This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. My toes are pretty much in another time zone.
He cracks up and then I do, and the sound of our laughter getting all mixed up together is like a time machine and we’re instantly back to last summer, the days in the woods, the nights on his roof. We haven’t talked in five months and we both look like different people, but it’s the same, same, same. I notice Mom watching us curiously, intently, not totally comprehending what she’s seeing, like we’re some foreign movie with no subtitles.
Brian turns to Jude, who’s finally managed to get her food down. “Hey,” he says.
She waves, then goes back to her dry Cheerios. It’s true. There’s nothing between them. It was probably like being in an elevator with a stranger in that closet. I get a pang of guilt over what I did in that closet.
“Where the hell is Ralph? Where the hell is Ralph?”
“Oh my God,” Brian exclaims. “I forgot! I can’t believe I’ve gone months without thinking about the whereabouts of Ralph!”
“Quite an existential dilemma that parrot has put us all in,” Mom says, smiling at him.
He returns her smile, then meets my eyes. “Ready?” he says, like we have some plan.
I notice he doesn’t have his meteorite bag and see out the window it’s probably going to pour any minute, but we need to get out of here. Immediately. “We’re going to search for meteorites,” I say, like that’s what most people do on winter mornings. I never really told either of them too much about last summer, which is reflected in both of their flummoxed faces. But who freaking cares?
Not us.
In a flash, we’re through the door, across the street and into the woods, running for no reason and laughing for no reason and totally out of breath and out of our minds when Brian catches me by my shirt, whips me around, and with one strong hand flat against my chest, he pushes me against a tree and kisses me so hard I go blind.