“You do realize that’s not real food, right?” He keeps his tone light, so much lighter than the feeling in the room.
“How about a glass of wine?” my mom asks, suddenly unfreezing, as if her play button has been pushed, and she busies herself getting a bottle out, opening it up, and pouring herself a large glass. She gulps it down. Only then does she pour out two more: another for her and one for Jack.
“Ice cream too,” I say, tossing him the pint of mint chocolate chip I find in the freezer. He grabs a spoon from the drawer and digs right in to the container. Uncle Jack hasn’t bothered to shave, and his almost-beard is dotted with gray hairs. He looks about as depressed as my mother and I feel.
“How’s Evan?” I ask, just to make some conversation. Evan is one of Jack’s sons; he’s fourteen and also goes to Mapleview. We used to hang out when we were younger, when our families would vacation together before his parents got divorced. Evan and I and his younger brother, Alex, would make sand castles and tackle each other in the ocean, and I used to complain to Auntie Katie that they should have made at least one girl for me to play with. Those trips don’t feel real anymore. Like a memory of something I once saw on television.
“Going to junior prom, apparently,” Jack says, and smiles.
“That’s a big deal for a freshman,” I say.
“How about you?”
“Nah, not going.” I avoid looking at my mother. I have a feeling my skipping prom falls under the same category as my not sitting with my friends at lunch. It will inspire, at the very least, a discussion.
“Your dad would have wanted you to go. He’d want you to have fun,” Jack says. “Not mope around with us old folks.”
“Let’s not talk about what Robert would have wanted,” my mom cuts in, her voice icy and sharp.
“I didn’t mean to step on any toes,” Jack says softly.
“Then don’t.”
“Mandi, you can’t avoid me forever.”
“I can try.”
“I’m just doing my job as executor. There’s estate stuff we need to take care of. I don’t have the authority to—”
“Wow, it’s getting late and I actually have a lot of work to do.” My mom jumps out of her chair, and just like that she walks out of the room, taking her glass of wine with her.
“I’ll help,” I say to Jack, after what feels like a long time in which we’ve both sat here staring at the empty space my mother left behind. “Just tell me what you need and I’ll do it.”
My voice sounds empty. I’m as useless as I feel. Uncle Jack hands me the pint of ice cream, and the two of us pass it back and forth until it’s finished.
“Little D!” Miney says, and there she is, at the dinner table, sitting in her seat, which we leave open in her absence out of protocol. Her hair is a little longer, but at least at first glance, she looks pretty much the same. Like my sister. “I’m home!”
Yes, this is obvious, though I refrain from telling her that. From past experience I’ve learned this is rude. What is not immediately obvious is why she is here. She’s not supposed to be home for another forty-nine days, her spring break, which does not in any way overlap with mine. We have already scheduled around this inconvenience. I will skip school on that Tuesday with my parents’ permission—they have already agreed to write a note in which they will claim I have an important doctor’s appointment—and Miney and I will re-create what we have mutually agreed was the Perfect Day of All the Days Ever. It will involve lunch from Sayonara Sushi, ice cream from Straw, forty-seven minutes at our favorite bookstore, and then a trip down the shore to the aquarium.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Some things never change. Always straight to the point,” Miney says, and makes a sound that is similar to Kit’s snort. A laugh that is not really a laugh but is something wholly unidentifiable by me. Someone should make a YouTube video that identifies the range of female noises, not unlike the ones they have for avid birders. “I just needed a break from school. And I missed you guys.”
Though I think it highly unlikely that Miney missed me—I’ve estimated that I irritate her about eighty percent of the time we spend together—I’m thrilled that she’s here. Kit at my lunch table and Miney home on the same day feel like something more than coincidence. A cosmic alignment.
“When are you leaving?” I ask. Departures are easier for me if I have some lead time to prepare and plan, to imagine the befores and afters of the scenario.
“You’ll be the first to know when I figure it out. Now, get over here,” she says, and stands up and opens her arms for a hug. I’m generally not a fan of displays of affection, but I make an exception for my parents and Miney. Well, really just for my mom and Miney. My dad is more of a thumbs-up kind of guy.
Her arms wrap around me, and I immediately start to look for sneaky changes. Miney’s perfume is no longer citrus. Instead it’s something sandalwood-based, borderline musty, and her clothes don’t smell recently laundered. A chunk of her hair is now purple, and she’s added a piercing to the top part of her ear. Her eyes are bloodshot.
She better not have gotten a tattoo. I couldn’t handle that.
Miney was perfect the way she was when she left in September. I don’t like that each time she comes home, I need to readjust to a new iteration. I find I have trouble with the purple stripe. It looks like noise.
“Mom says Kit drove you home from school today,” she says, which isn’t a question, but she somehow makes it sound like one.
“Yup,” I say. “We talked all about quantum mechanics.”
“Oh my God, D. Have I taught you nothing?” she says.
“You’ve taught me lots of things. I didn’t mention her weight, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“What are we going to do with you?” she asks, and my stomach clenches. Freshman year, when I would find myself in trouble at school on a biweekly basis, Principal Hoch would pose this question, which is both idiomatic and rhetorical. What are we going to do with you? Like I was a group project.
Just once I’d like the answer to be: nothing.
Just once I’d like the answer to be: You are just fine as is.
Just once I’d like the question not to be asked in the first place.
“Get your notebook,” Miney demands, and I pull it out of my bag. I smooth the familiar blue cover, a tic left over from when I needed to look through it hourly. Lately, though, the notebook stays in my bag for longer periods. I can almost imagine a time I won’t need it at all. “An opportunity like Kit comes around once in a lifetime, if that.”
“Kit is a girl. Though statistically speaking, it is unlikely that she is actually the best girl in the world, it feels that way. No doubt she’s the best girl in Mapleview. What Kit is not is an opportunity,” I say.