Well Met(4)

I laughed. “I’ll hold you to that.” An easy promise to make, since I was already enjoying myself. I headed back up the aisle and plopped into my vacated seat in the last row. Down at the front, Simon collected more forms, probably criticizing applicants’ handwriting while he did so. He glanced up at one point like he could feel my eyes on him, and his brows drew together in a frown. God, he was really holding a grudge about that form, wasn’t he?

At the other side of the auditorium, Mitch high-fived a student and offered a fist bump to Caitlin, who looked at him like he hung the moon. I knew which of these two guys I was looking forward to getting to know better this summer, and it wasn’t the Ren Faire Killjoy.



* * *



? ? ?

I’d always been a little in awe of my older sister. Married young and divorced young from a man who’d had little interest in being a father, April had raised Caitlin on her own with an independence that bordered on intimidating. We’d never been particularly close—a twelve-year age difference will do that, when April was off to college right around the time that I was starting to become interesting—but I’d always thought of her as someone to emulate.

Which was why it was so hard to see her in her current condition.

When we got home from auditions, I opened the front door to find a crutch in the middle of the living room floor. I followed the line of the crutch, which pointed directly at my big sister on the couch. She looked like a dog who’d been caught going through the trash.

“You tried to get up while we were gone, didn’t you?” I crossed my arms and stared her down. It was hard to look threatening when you were barely five foot three, but I managed pretty well.

“Yeah.” April sighed. “That didn’t go well.”

Caitlin didn’t notice our little standoff. “Hey, Mom!” She dropped a kiss in the vicinity of April’s cheek before running off to her room. She could text more efficiently in there, probably.

I picked up the fallen crutch and propped it against the arm of the couch next to the other one. “BLTs okay for lunch?”

“Sure. Everything go okay?” April craned her neck to the side and tossed the question over her shoulder as I went into the kitchen to get the bacon started. “Did Caitlin get signed up for the cast?” Shifting noises on the couch, punctuated by some swearing under her breath. Yeah, she was definitely cutting back on the pain medication. The next few days would be bumpy.

“Everything went fine. They said they can’t take everyone, but they’re sending out an email next week to everyone who made the cast.”

“Next week? Oof. I don’t know if I can live with her long enough for her to find out if she’s in.”

“She’ll get in.” I punched down the bread in the toaster and started slicing tomatoes. “If they don’t let her in, they don’t get me. Thanks for that, by the way. You totally set me up.”

“What? No, I didn’t. I told you not to go in there. All you were supposed to do was drop her off.”

“Yeah, well.” I got down three plates and started assembling sandwiches. “Caitlin can’t be in the cast without a parent volunteering. They said you were going to volunteer, you know, before . . .” There was no good way to end that sentence.

“What?” April was repeating herself now, and it had nothing to do with meds. “I . . . oh.” Yep. There it was. She remembered now. “Shit.” I glanced through the pass-through to see her sag against the back of the couch. “I did set you up. I completely forgot.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have it on good authority that it’ll be fun.” I put the plates on the pass-through and tossed a bag of chips up there beside them. I thought about Mitch and his promised kilt. That would certainly be fun. Then I thought about Simon and his disapproving face. Less fun. I brought lunch out to the living room, and we ate on TV trays so April wouldn’t have to get up. I left the third plate on the counter; Caitlin would be along for it eventually.

“Fun,” April repeated as she reached for her sandwich. She didn’t sound convinced. She took a bite and shrugged. “I guess. I mean, what else have you got going on, right?”

I crunched a chip and half squinted at her. She couldn’t be serious. I had a list-making app completely dedicated to their schedules. Surely she remembered what a nonstop life she and her kid had before one guy ran a red light one night and changed everything.

She met my gaze and squinted back with an exaggerated face. She wasn’t serious after all. I wasn’t used to a sister who joked around with me. But she was trying, so I played along, throwing a chip at her. “You’re right. In fact, I picked up a box of chocolates so we could lie around all weekend and watch television.”

“Good plan.” She leaned forward and snagged the bag of chips. She shook her head at me. “You’re too defensive. That Jake guy did a number on you, huh? You know, when Mom told me about him I said he was no good. You broke up, what, a couple months ago?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. Of course Mom had told her. April and I had always gotten along fine, but the age difference, plus all the moving away from home and starting our own lives, had kept us from being as close as sisters usually were. Hence Mom acting as a kind of conduit between us, filling us in on each other’s lives. It was a weird system, but it worked for us. “Yeah, it was a week or so before your accident. So you know, good timing.”