Break(10)

“So all’s not right in wonderland?” Antonia licks chocolate off her fingers.

“It’s not that. She’s got this little sister she wants to set up with Jesse.”

Max looks up from the late returns. “Isn’t Jesse, like, dying of AIDS?”

Antonia’s mouth drops open. “Max!”

“He does not have AIDS,” I say.

Max hands Fight Club to Antonia. “Well, he’s dying of something, isn’t he?”

“Food allergies,” I say. “And he’s not dying. But if he dates Charlotte’s little sister, isn’t that practically incest?”

Antonia says, “I thought you and Charlotte weren’t dating.”

“We’re not. Hush.”


“Then it’s not incest.” Max stamps two movies. “It’s merely two brothers enjoying the company of two girls who happen to be related.”

“Yeah, but . . . enjoying to what extent?”

“Ew.” Antonia picks up a few movies and shoves them under her arm. “Come on. I’m bored of dissecting Jonah’s love life.”

“Not-love life,” I correct.

She rolls her head around. “Whatever. I’m going to the back. Let’s go have a screening.” She grabs Max’s hand. “Coming, Jonah?”

I shake my head. “I’ll watch the register.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah. Who knows. Someone might come.”

I spend almost an hour at the register trying not to think about Jesse and Mini-Charlotte and trying not to listen to Antonia and Max make slurping noises. Eventually, customers start to trickle in, and I go through the motions.

See, the whole job is f*cking worthless. I come here for a few hours after school a few days a week and slog through movie advice and cash-register Olympics like I actually know anything. At least it gets me away from my family for a little while. But I wish I were with Charlotte.

At about four thirty, I point a girl toward the docu-mentaries and rescue my ringing phone from my pocket.

“Can you come home?” Jesse says. “There’s milk everywhere and I’m throwing up.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I’ve thrown up four times in the past, like, twenty minutes. Can you get home?”

“Where the hell is Mom?”

“Took Will to the doctor. Jonah, seriously. I’m sitting outside so I don’t have to smell it, and it’s f*cking cold.”

“Did you take Benadryl?”

“Yeah. It stayed down for a good thirty seconds.”

This is as close as Jesse ever gets to angry, and I think he’s pissed-off more seriously than he’s sick. That’s easier to deal with, at least, though I still feel bad for the kid. “I can get out of the shift if you need me,” I say, “but do you think you could pick me up? I don’t have a ride out of here.”

He makes exasperated-disbelieving noises.

I say, “It’d probably do you good to get away from the house.”

He coughs and says, “I’m going to throw up again.”

“All right,” I relent worthlessly, as his footsteps rush away from the phone. “I’ll get home.”

I finish checking out the last customer and venture into the back for Max and Antonia. They scoot away from each other as soon as I open the door, like they’re afraid their cuddling will bruise my eyes.

I say, “So you know my brother who’s dying of AIDS?”

Max cleans his glasses on his shirt. “Yeah.”

“Yeah, well, he’s having, like, an AIDS attack. So I need to get home.”

He looks at me critically. “Everything okay?”

“He’ll be fine. But he’s home alone and I need to get to him. So—”

He waves his hand. “Take the shift off. Antonia and I can handle.”

“That’s not it. I sort of need a ride.”

He chews his cheek, studying me, then turns to Antonia and speaks to her in some sort of romantic hippie language. She nods, pulls her hair over her shoulder, and traipses out to the front desk.

“I’ll drive you home,” Max says, shoving his arms through the sleeves of his denim jacket.

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

He shrugs.

Max’s van has a bench seat at the front and endless empty space in the back. I climb in and sling my backpack onto the dirty floor. He starts the engine. His feet barely reach the pedals. I push back against the headrest like I’m on one of those carnival rides and the floor’s about to drop out. I don’t know how to tell him to drive faster without sounding like a nervous wreck. So I just wait until he gets to my house, then smile and thank him and shake his hand.

“Jesse?”

He’s throwing up. I hear it through the bathroom door. My stomach squeezes, but it’s hard to be too squeamish when you’ve got a brother who throws up as much as he does.

I lean against the door. “How you feeling?”

He runs the tap, probably to drown out the noise.

I say, “How is there anything left in your stomach?”

He shouts, “Guess I’ve been saving up!”

“I’m going to clean.”