Invincible Summer(4)

Magic says Gideon.

“Magic,” I repeat to Noah, and Dad laughs from the stove.

Noah gives Dad a stiff kiss on the cheek. “Where’s Mom?”

Dad does that laugh that sounds like a cough. “Still fast asleep. I told her she needed to tuck in early last night, but she never listens to me. Looks like we’ll be reheating some waffles for Mama, right, Claudia?”

Claudia looks up from the TV. “Is this because I’m a girl?

I’m getting roped into reheating duties because I’m a girl?”

I let my mouth gape open. “Girl? I thought you were a woman!”

Noah laughs, and Claudia says, “Play your guitar, Chase.”

I sit on the couch and start playing a blues tune for Claudia. “Poooor Claudia,” I sing. “Drowning in brothers.”

“New baby’s a girl!” she cheers.

“With her luck it’ll beeeee another brother!” I strum some final chords and everyone applauds, even Gideon.

Noah shovels down four waffles and gets very, very impatient waiting for the rest of us to finish. “I want to go downtown,” he keeps whining, hanging off the counter, jostling Gideon’s shoulder, trying to get us to hurry. Out he signs.

Waffles Gideon signs back, frowning.

“Claaaaude,” Noah whines. “Chaaase.” “Shitdamn, Noah,” I explode. Shitdamn is Dad’s word, but sometimes it’s too perfect to pass up. “Go outside and wear yourself out. We’ll be ready in a minute.”

The doors to the deck are all open, and the air off the ocean smells so cold. The wind is ice cream, and our waffles are the hot fudge. Dad and Gideon and Claudia keep sticking their noses up, sniffing the air, but Noah’s never appreciated any food he can’t devour without getting a headache.

He disappears for a few minutes and returns when we’re rinsing the dishes in the sink. His pants are bunched by his ankles, gritty and slimy with sea foam and sand, and Gideon’s blue plastic shovel is slung over his shoulders.

“Well?” we say.

Noah’s panting. “I dug a really big hole.”

Claudia wipes her hands on her shirt. “Gid’ll fall in it.”

Gideon’s messed-up ears mean sometimes he falls down just standing still.

“Gid needs to wear a helmet at all times.”

We all turn and look at Gideon, who’s standing in the center of the kitchen, spinning in circles, making gurgling noises through his snorkel.

“Ready to go?” Noah asks.

Time at the beach house is split between the ocean and downtown. Midday, we build sandcastles, bury each other, play in the waves, and get sunburn, but mornings and nights are spent scouring the stores downtown and sweat-ing sunscreen on the creaky playground. Noah used to play basketball, before he lost the ability to have what he calls “unproductive fun.”

I wonder what digging that hole was, then. He probably didn’t enjoy it, so it didn’t count.

I say, “Maybe Bella can come?”

Claudia makes a face. “Bella’s a snob.”

“Shut up.” She has some weird rivalry with Bella. Maybe she feels the same way about her as I do about Melinda, though I don’t think Bella’s ever stolen me away from my younger sibling. I wish.

“No girls,” Noah says, and he tucks his arm around my shoulders and mumbles into my hair, “I’m tired.” I look up, and he’s giving me a significant look.

“Shitdamn,” I mumble.

“Except me!” Claudia says. “I’m coming.”

“Yes, yes.” Noah palms Claudia’s head. “You don’t count.”

“Because I’m a woman.”

“Sure.”

“Not like Bella and Melinda!”

Noah seems to give this more consideration than it deserves. He drives us downtown. It’s less than three miles, but Claudia still shouts up to the front seat every ten seconds that I need to change the radio station, and the trip still takes forever because Noah won’t go even five miles over the speed limit. While we’re shouting at each other, we sign variations of seat belt and stay and no! to Gideon, and I wonder if his escape-the-booster-seat persistence means he’s going to grow up into a Noah.

Noah parallel parks, and we split up; he takes Claudia out to pick up stuff for my birthday dinner next week, and I bring Gid over to Recess, the toy store that’s about five feet by five feet and packed with useless shit. I like to overstimulate Gideon sometimes. I feel like he doesn’t get overwhelmed enough.

He gets sick of me latching on to him and uses his free hand to sign hand no.

Hand mine I sign back, and I keep a firm grip.

He cheers up when I show him posters of Marilyn Monroe and eventually convinces me to buy him a lunch box with her face on it. I can’t believe I’m the one turning fifteen in a week, and I’m buying presents for him. My birthday I sign to him while I’m checking out. You gift give me.

Little brother me he says, spinning in circles, and the checker looks at us like we’re crazy as he uses his hands for nothing but giving out change. It’s mid-July, so downtown is crawling with people. Girls in bikinis are walking with other girls in bikinis, their hair identically messed in those damp halfhearted buns, water-proof mascara smudging even though they think it’s not. I like these girls, but they never smile back. The girls who smile back are always the ones who are wearing way too many clothes, the ones I want to throw in the ocean, or at the very least shake and say, “Do you know where you are?”