Tease(17)

“What are you doing here?” Brielle says to Emma.

Emma ignores her, though, and talks to me instead. “Do you do everything she tells you to do?”

“What did you just say?” I snap back, but at the exact same time Brielle goes, “What did you say, bitch?” so it actually sounds like I’m parroting her.

Emma cracks up, and so does Jacob, which is totally not fair—he was our friend first—and Brielle takes another step toward the corner of the island, closer to them.

“I don’t know who invited you,” she growls at Emma, “but I know who’s gonna kick your ass out of here.”

It’s not her best line, but it’s effective. Emma gives Jacob this look, like a sad Disney princess. Jacob shakes his head, like we’re all so immature and he’s just disappointed in us, and puts his arm around Emma again. He looks back at me and Brielle and says sarcastically, “Really nice party.”

“Really nice skank,” Brielle sneers back, but Jacob is already guiding Emma through the kitchen to the front of the house.

Brielle turns to watch them go, then holds her cup of beer up in the air, as if she’s toasting them.

“I hope Jacob likes herpes!” she yells.

Everyone’s still laughing as Jacob and Emma walk out the door.

By midnight Brielle is mostly in the bathroom throwing up, so I’m mostly in there with her. I only really see Dylan one more time, just as he’s leaving, but he gives me this long kiss and says, “Talk tomorrow?” and it’s enough. In the morning I feel like I’ve slept maybe five minutes, but I don’t care. I pad down to Brielle’s giant kitchen and make coffee while she’s still asleep.

When I bring it back upstairs, Brielle is propped up on her pillows, but still wearing the eye mask she put on last night. “That smells ahhhmaaaazing,” she says. She pushes the eye mask up and holds out both hands, and I put one of the mugs into them.

“Two Splendas and cream,” I say, sitting on the other side of the bed with my own one-Splenda cup.

“Bless you, you beautiful slut.” She takes a sip and closes her eyes. “I might actually be dead right now.”

“Actually, I’m not quite dead yet!” I joke, but when she doesn’t laugh I remember it’s my mom and my brothers who like Monty Python, not Brielle.

“Uch, you’re shouting,” she whines. “Are you going home now, or what?”

I open my mouth to make another joke, or argue, or something. But I actually should get home. And Brielle’s clearly not in the mood to download my Dylan experience. I press my lips back together and swallow my disappointment.

“Yeah,” I say, standing up. “Just wanted to make sure you had some caffeine.”

“You’re the best. Lock the door when you go.” Brielle’s eyes are still closed, so she doesn’t see me smile, which is just as well. It’s kind of a crappy smile.

But when I’m in my car I think about Dylan again, and I smile for real this time. For the whole drive I’m grinning like an idiot, though it fades again when I pull my Honda into the driveway at home.

My mom isn’t one of those parents who goes into the office on the weekends, and sometimes I wish she was. Instead she’s always trying to fix something around the house, and my brothers and I get roped into the lamest chores, like cleaning the blades of the ceiling fans (gross) or boxing up our old toys or electronics or whatever so she can take them to the Salvation Army. Or to the garage, more likely, where they become some other weekend’s cleanup/donation/dump project.

It snowed and then rained last week, but now it’s kind of warm out, so I’m not that surprised when I see Alex and Tommy holding a giant trash bag under a ladder while my mom, big rubber gloves on her hands, scoops gunk out of the gutters and tosses it into the bag. They’re all laughing about something, and I pause before I get out of the car, thinking first that I’d rather do anything but help clean the damn gutters, and second how happy they look, like some postmodern Norman Rockwell painting. The Single Mother, it would be called. She has her hair up and her big red Huskers sweatshirt on, the one that used to be my dad’s, one of the things he left behind when he moved.

Alex is telling some story with lots of goofy faces and hand gestures. But then he lets his side of the bag drop and I hear Tommy squawking, and the moment is over.

“Sara, could you get another bag out of the garage?” my mom calls as I’m finally climbing out and slamming my car door shut.

I hear Tommy ask, “Hey, can I go watch TV now? You said I could when Sara got home!”

“No, I said you could go inside and start your homework,” she corrects him. As I carry the new bag over, flapping it open on my way, I see Tommy frown, obviously trying to decide which option is less awful.

“Can I scoop muck for a while?” he asks. I can tell he’s already asked her this at least a million times.

“Tom-Tom, you know that ladder is too high,” I say so my mom doesn’t have to. “But I bet next winter you’ll be big enough to crawl all over the roof, fixing tiles and cleaning the gutters and sweeping the chimney—”

“We don’t have a chimney!” Alex protests, but he’s already in a fit of giggles at the very idea. He turns to Tommy and squeals, “You’d get all covered in sook!”