Mom glared at me as if I’d just denounced oxygen. “Don’t tell me you’re siding with her intolerant small-town parenting mumbo jumbo.”
I recoiled slightly but held my ground. “All I’m saying is maybe she has a point. I mean, the kid’s best friend is an elderly Alzheimer’s patient. Not to mention the whole white-and-yellow food thing, the World War II obsession, the compulsive mapmaking . . .”
Mom poked her head into the hallway to make sure Grub couldn’t hear us. He was still in the living room drawing maps—big surprise. Mom lowered her voice and pointed at me with a sudsy spatula. “There’s nothing wrong with that boy, do you hear me? I’ll take him back to Chicago before I deal with this kind of claptrap judgment.”
I wiped some spatula soap from my cheek, then took a deep breath. “I’m serious, Mom, I’m a little worried about him. Blackjack hasn’t been doing so well. Sometimes he doesn’t even remember who Grub is. And that army game they play has been walking a fine line between reality and fiction lately.”
Mom raised an eyebrow and continued on. “Well, it’s still better than what most kids his age are doing, staring at screens and numbing their minds. And besides, you’re always with him at Hilltop, right?”
“Well, yeah, but . . .” I paused. That wasn’t exactly true, or was it? I guess it depended on whether Mom meant with him generally or with him in the same room. In either case, I decided now was not a good time to ask. Whenever Mom’s parenting skills got questioned, there was hell to pay. Maybe I’d bring it up again after she cooled down.
“In fact, I think what Manny’s doing is a wonderful thing. He’s expressing his creativity and learning from his elders. All those years Grandma was sick, I was so grateful when people took the time to talk to her, to treat her with compassion. That’s what Manny’s doing with Mr. Porter. Your brother has a good heart. He’s a special—”
“Special snowflake, I get it, Mom.” I raised my white flag in surrender, and then used it to dry the spatula. I decided if Mom wasn’t going to worry about him, I wouldn’t either. I changed the subject. “So what are you making for that catering job at the nursing home? Letty’s birthday party.”
“I can’t even think about that right now, I’m so pissed at that grocery store woman.”
“Everyone loves your triple chocolate brownies.”
“I don’t own a damn confectionery,” she snapped.
I threw my hands in the air, conceding defeat. We finished the dishes in silence. Mom mostly grumbled to herself for the next few days, and I kept my distance.
The one small ray of sunshine during an otherwise bleak stretch was the amount of time I spent with Dylan, Axl, and Novie. And that went well for about one whole day until Dylan’s girlfriend dumped him.
That evening, Axl and Novie had decided to play some songs for their great-grandmother’s birthday party, so we’d been going through Letty’s handwritten list in Dylan’s basement. After crossing off song after song, we’d narrowed our selections to two: “Life Could Be a Dream” and “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”
“What time does the party start?” asked Dylan.
“Six o’clock,” I replied.
“Right on. Our first official show as a band,” said Axl.
“Nursing Home Tour!” said Novie, crossing her sticks over her head, followed by a drumroll and a cymbal crash.
“Gotta start somewhere, right?” said Dylan.
While there was some humor to the circumstance, it truly was our first gig as a band, as well as my first time playing in front of a crowd. We wanted to sound good, regardless of the audience.
“Who’s going to be there?” I asked. “Besides the residents, I mean.”
“Pretty much our whole family,” said Novie. “Mom, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends. Most of our cousins.” Novie paused and wagged her eyebrows at Dylan. “DeeDee will be there.”
“You know I have a girlfriend,” said Dylan from behind his guitar.
“She asked how you’ve been,” Novie replied, still moving her eyebrows.
“No way,” said Dylan. His phone dinged in his pocket. “See? Anna’s listening from across the country. She just texted. Be right back.” Dylan hurried across the basement to attend to his phone.
“Who’s DeeDee?” I asked.
“Our second cousin. She met Dylan a couple years ago and totally had the hots for him,” said Novie. “Unfortunately, she inherited the Kowalczyk crazy genes. She’s tenacious.”
“And persistent,” added Axl.
“She’s tenaciously persistent,” said Novie.
“Completely nuts,” said Axl, accentuating his point by slapping a string on his bass, which sounded like a spring flying loose.
“Batshit,” said Novie, twirling a drumstick in a circular motion next to her head. “So, Zeus, how are things with Rose? Is she back yet?”
“Things are good. She gets back in a couple days. I’m playing a song with her too for this shindig, if we have enough time to learn one.” I almost hoped we didn’t. The thought of playing music with Rose still flustered me.
“Sweet,” said Novie.
Dylan groaned from across the room. We all turned to see him slowly making his way back to the practice space. He looked as if he might barf. “Dr Pepper me. Now.”
“Are you okay?” asked Novie.
Axl reached in the fridge, popped open a can, and handed it to Dylan. “What’s wrong, dude?”
Dylan collapsed into the couch and took a long swig. He belched. “Anna dumped me.” He belched again. “For some other camp counselor in Maine. She said ‘he’s really nice’ and that I’ll have to meet him.” Dylan mumbled a series of profanities, then took another drink. “Two years down the drain. I knew it was a bad idea for her to go away this summer.”
I looked at the twins out of the corner of my eye for a reaction. They were doing the same to each other.
“That sucks, dude,” Novie finally said.
“We should have seen it coming,” Axl added.
“I didn’t even see it coming,” said Dylan to no one.
“Are you sure you read the text right? What did it say, exactly?” I asked.
Dylan pulled out his phone and started scrolling. “Blah, blah, ‘I think we need to spend some time apart,’ something about having our whole lives ahead of us, then ‘You’re a really special person and I hope we can stay friends.’”
“Ouch,” said Novie.
“Yeah, she definitely dumped you, man,” said Axl.
I nervously picked at a string, then scratched at a spot on the guitar with my thumbnail, suddenly finding it incredibly interesting. Novie popped a bubble of chewing gum. Axl scratched his head.
“She dumped me,” Dylan said. “She dumped me,” he repeated, emphasizing every word.
“Screw Anna, Nursing Home Tour!” Axl yelled with a fist pump.
Dylan looked at him blankly.
All this girlfriend talk drove my thoughts into their favorite rest stop—Rose. What was she doing right then? My gut twisted at the thought of the entire island of Saint Thomas admiring Rose in a swimsuit. I’d never even seen Rose in a swimsuit. What the hell. What if she met someone else, like Anna did? I wasn’t sure how well I could handle that news. Not nearly as well as Dylan had, anyway.
The film rolled in my mind.