You'd Be Home Now (43)

“I smell like a giant onion.” His face is sweaty and his shirt is stained with salad and oil.

I sniff the air. “You kind of do.”

When we come in the door, my mother is waiting for us. She frowns. “Are you getting sick, Joe? You look flushed.”

She presses the back of her hand to his forehead, but he pushes it away. “It’s the sheen of labor, Mom. You should be proud.”

My mom bristles. “A little hard work goes a long way, Joe. I just want to help you.”

I tense up, waiting for a fight.

But instead, Joey’s shoulders sag, and he just says, “I know, Mom. I know.”

He heads up the stairs and Mom turns to me, taking a deep breath.

“I mean, you can see that, can’t you? I’m doing everything I can to keep him on track.” Her voice wavers a little.

“It’s just…” I look at the floor, at her feet, anywhere but her face, because I don’t want to say anything that will make her mad. That’s like my whole life, trying not to upset my own mother.

“It’s just…a lot,” I finally say. “He’ll get used to it.”

    She nods. “Well, I’m going out for a bit for drinks with Tom Rigby and some council members. I won’t be back until late. These people like to knock it back and I have to play along.”

“Oh.” I act surprised, like I didn’t just learn this from Gage. “Council on a Saturday night? What for?”

She drops her phone into her purse. “It’s not a formal meeting. They’re feeling me out. Some developers want to buy the Mill. It’s falling apart and the council wants me to sell it or raze it and sell the land.”

“That’s…big.”

Gage is coming over Gage is coming over Gage is coming over

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

“What…time will you be back?” I say, trying to keep my voice casual.

“Late. Those people can really drink. I’ll be buying, of course.” She kind of laughs. “Dinner’s warming on the stove, so don’t forget about it.”

“Okay, sure. Fine.”

“Are you okay? You seem a little…jumpy?”

“Yes,” I say. “Absolutely. Tip-top.”

“All right, then. I’m off.”

It isn’t until she’s out the door that I realize Joey will be here, and what will I do about Joey?



* * *



—

I’m putting soup into bowls in the kitchen, Fuzzy darting in and out of my legs, when Joey comes in. His hair is wet and he’s dressed in a T-shirt and sweats. He slides onto a stool at the island. I push a bowl of soup at him. He grimaces.

“Not hungry. I had to look at food all day.”

“It didn’t seem so bad,” I say.

    “Hank is a dick and it was pretty obvious he doesn’t really want me there—he wants to get in good with Mom for some reason, but I guess it could have been worse. At least I got to talk to some people there. It was nice to just talk to people, since I can’t really talk to anyone at school except Amber.”

I think about Max earlier in the day, shouting that everyone needs friends.

I stir the soup in my bowl. “I forgot to tell you Max deVos came by earlier. Mom scared him off.”

Joey puts his head in his hands. “Poor Max. He’s harmless.”

“Yeah.” I sneak a look at the clock on the kitchen wall. It’s seven o’clock. Three more hours.

Joey’s wiping his eyes.

“Joey, what’s wrong?” I put my soup spoon down.

“Nothing. It’s just…Max, I guess. I mean, I don’t really have any friends now, you know?” He rubs his face. “Whatever. I’m gonna go to bed early, but you want to watch a movie or something first?”

“Sure.” I feel sorry for Joey. I don’t have any friends anymore, either, but at least Gage counts for something.

As I’m putting the soup away and rinsing our bowls for the dishwasher, I can hear Joey clicking through movies to watch. I check the clock again. A little less than three hours now. How long a movie will he choose? Will I have time to take a shower after? I want to be clean for later, for Gage. How am I going to get away from Joey and go outside to the pool house? What if—

I slam the dishwasher door shut a little too hard.

I don’t want to spend a Saturday night watching my brother. I want to spend a Saturday night kissing a boy. I want to spend Saturday night kissing someone without sneaking around about it. Maybe I should just tell Joey about Gage.

    But I can’t.

There’s an uncomfortable twist in my stomach.

I can’t tell Joey about Gage because I think I know how he would react, and that might not be something I can deal with right now. The fact that I’m me and Gage Galt is Gage Galt and I’m pretty sure Joey’s reaction, like the rest of the world, would be Why is Gage Galt interested in you? Because that type of boy generally doesn’t hang out with invisible girls like me, and as much as I would like the world to right itself and make this a normal thing, that godlike boys like Gage could really see invisible girls like me, and could like them, I’m not so sure the world, or Gage, works that way. And in my heart of hearts, I know Joey, if I told him, would think this, too, and that makes the twisting in my stomach even worse. Because underneath it all, it’s really me that’s wondering why I’m a girl that can only be seen in secret, in the dark. Where all my awfulness and wrongness can be kissed and stroked away.