THAT NIGHT, LEILA read to me from the back of the maxi pad package. She taught me how to use a tampon, which was weird, and she reminded me over and over again how hard it was to be a young mother. She talked about Brian and his musical gifts. She said he would be famous, a legend. He was ahead of his time and a natural genius on the guitar. She said he was going to save them all, travel the world, make lots of money, and rescue the family from the pits of Neeble.
Occasionally, Leila would go into the bathroom alone and say she was blowing her nose, but I knew otherwise. At about eleven p.m., we heard a knock on her bedroom door, and Brian walked in. There was a glow that followed Jax’s older brother, like he really was heaven-sent. He had longish hair and a superstar smile. I was smitten. I had been from the first time I saw Brian plucking his guitar in the garage.
“Mom? Mom?”
Leila seemed a little out of it as she sat at her tiny vanity stool, staring at her reflection. Brian gave me a small smile as he walked toward his mom, making my stomach do somersaults.
“Brian, I’m fine,” Leila said.
“You should call it a night, Mom. You have to work a double tomorrow. Emerson, I think it’s time to go.” He said it nicely, but it still made me feel embarrassed.
“Of course.”
“No, Emerson, stay. Brian, let her stay. She can read to me and then she can go.”
He looked at me first, as if to ask if this was okay with me. I nodded then he turned back to his mom. “Okay.” He headed toward the door, but as he came toward me he bent down and whispered in my ear. “Don’t let her keep you up.”
I shivered, little tingles shooting down my arms just from his breath on my neck.
“Yes . . . sir.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’?”
My heart bounced around inside of my chest. “Okay.”
After he left, Leila got under the covers. “Come sit here next to me.” I scooted up to the head of the bed, and she handed me a National Enquirer. “Read that, will you?”
“Okay.”
“I always wished I had a daughter,” she said, and it made me feel good. There were actually people in the world who wished they had daughters.
I read her an article about a boozy Hillary Clinton being shipped off to rehab. “This can’t be true,” I said.
“I knew Hilary was an alkie,” Leila slurred.
“I think this is fake.” I thumbed through the rest of the magazine, past the Jesus sightings and UFO reports. By the time I finished reading all the main articles aloud, Leila was sound asleep. I crawled off the bed and headed down the hallway. I spotted Brian in his room as he smoked something out of a pipe—pot, I assumed. He threw a hand up in a motionless wave as I walked by, so I did the same.
“Hey!” he whispered.
I backed up to his doorway. “Hi,” I said timidly.
He put the pipe down. “Come in here.”
I waved smoke out of my face and walked up to where he was sitting on the bed. “What’s up?” I looked around. There were posters of rock bands on his walls, along with a calendar with mostly naked women on it.
“I’m working on a song. You want to hear it?”
“I’d love to.”
I sat on the bed next to him while he pulled an acoustic guitar onto his lap. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
It struck me that Brian was nervous, and I wondered if he saw me differently. I’d grown up overnight; I wasn’t his little brother’s playmate anymore.
“I would never laugh . . . I think . . . I think you’re amazing.” My voice was shaking with nerves.
He chuckled and then pulled his long hair into a ponytail at the back of his neck. I had the stray thought that Jax would be taller and better-looking than Brian when he grew up, but I banished the thought from my mind. I’d had a crush on Brian for years, and he was about to serenade me.
He strummed the guitar and then plucked out a complicated melody. I thought he was going to sing, but he didn’t.
“What did you think?” he asked nervously.
“It was good, but what about the lyrics?”
He laughed again and then reached out and messed up my hair like he was petting a freakin’ Labrador. “Such a goofball. I’m the guitarist in my band. I don’t write the lyrics.”
“Oh, sheesh, what do I know? Well, anyway, it was really cool.” My face was getting redder by the millisecond.
“Thanks for listening. Hey, it’s getting pretty late. You better scram, kid.”
“Okay.” I put an extra bounce in my step as I left the room, hoping Brian wouldn’t see how totally heartbroken I was that he didn’t try to kiss me. I guess that would have been pretty wrong for a guy his age.
In the living room, Jax was asleep on the couch. I put a blanket over him, and he stirred.
“What are you doing?” he murmured.
“I’m leaving. I just wanted to put a blanket over you,” I said.
He popped up to his feet, suddenly awake. “I’ll walk you.”
“Next door, doofus? You don’t have to walk me.”