Unspeakable Things(62)

It was so easy, talking to him.

“Your mom and dad gonna drive these into town?” he asked when the last invitation was inside its homemade envelope.

“They’re on vacation.”

He pretended to fall backward in shock, but the surprise on his face was real. “Your parents left you and your sister home alone?”

I crossed my arms. “Yeah. So what?” I knew what. I didn’t want him to say it, though. I didn’t want to be the odd-duck family anymore.

“When are they getting back?”

“Early tomorrow. We’re supposed to call your mom and dad if we have an emergency.”

“Huh.” He seemed to think about it. “You have any ice cream?”

“You shouldn’t eat processed food.” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.

He scratched his scalp. It was loud. Scritch scritch. “I should probably go.”

I wished I could take back my words. “Hey, I’ll bike with you. I should head to town and drop all these off, anyhow. You want to come into Lilydale?”

“I dunno.”

“We could drive by my friend Gabriel’s house.” I’d dreamed of creating an invitation for him, but in the end, I hadn’t. If Gabriel happened to spot us bike by, though, and asked me what I was up to, I could casually invite him to my birthday.

“Gabriel the dentist’s kid?”

I swallowed my spit too fast and started coughing. “You know him?”

“Yeah, my dad does, anyhow. He’s farming some of the land they own. He a friend of yours?”

“Sorta.” No way was I biking by Gabriel’s house now. “On second thought, I think I’ll just stick these in the mail. We have stamps.”

“Okay,” Frank said.

He followed me into the kitchen, and I poured us each a glass of pink-gold rhubarb-ade. When I slid the jug back into the refrigerator, Frank pointed toward the ceiling.

“We have one of those holes in our house, too. For the heat to go up.”

I gulped the honey-sweetened drink, my eyes watering at its tartness. “Same here. That’s my room up there. Hey, you know what would be so cool?”

“What?”

“If we were tall enough to see the top of the refrigerator without standing on our tippy-toes. I can’t wait until I’m big like that. Imagine being that tall.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’ll grow, you know.”

I pinched his arm, but not hard. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Then keep digging, Watson.”

I giggled. I hadn’t heard that one. It must have been something they said in Rochester.

“I should get home,” Frank said.

“I’ll bike with you.”

We both stared at Goblin’s house when we passed it. There was no sign of movement, but then there rarely was. Frank’s mom and dad were having ice cream drinks when we showed up. Mrs. Gomez was quick to swear that they normally never drank during the day and was embarrassed we’d caught them, but the girls were down for a late nap and tomorrow they’d start fieldwork in earnest and you only lived once.

I loved her.

My grandparents used to end a hard workday with a Brandy Alexander or a Grasshopper, and they’d let me and Sephie have a sip. That’s what I thought hard liquor tasted like until I snuck a sip of Dad’s whiskey a few years later and realized actual booze tasted like gasoline.

Mr. Gomez set his drink down and insisted on driving me home, even though Frank and I had been hanging out all day without supervision. I told Mr. Gomez that he didn’t have to do it, but Mrs. Gomez told me I was fighting a losing battle because Mr. Gomez believed in being a gentleman and I might as well get it done and over with.

The ride was uncomfortable, just like when he’d driven me home from babysitting. At least there was no mob of crows coming at his truck this time. We discussed the weather. It looked like it would rain again. I thought about him and Mrs. Gomez being the people we should call if there was an emergency.

That’s when the question burbled out of me. “Why’d you guys move here?”

I watched myself ask it in the reflection of my side mirror. I wished I could take it back. It was too personal.

Mr. Gomez shifted his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. He smelled like the outdoors. His gray T-shirt was stained at the armpits and covered in dirt. He took the turn past Goblin’s house, not bothering to signal. I didn’t think he was gonna answer me.

“Wanted my kids to grow up on land we owned, like I did,” he finally said.

I had another personal question waiting right behind that one. “Frank said you moved here earlier than the rest of them. Didn’t you miss them?”

He removed his toothpick at this question and looked at it, one hand still on the steering wheel. “Sometimes a break is nice.”

It was clear he meant from conversation with me, and so I held my tongue rather than ask the other questions that were burning into it like Cinnamon Discs.





CHAPTER 40

I should have guessed when Sephie didn’t want to watch Real People and known for a fact when she pooh-poohed the CBS Wednesday Night Movie showing of Young Frankenstein.

“I’ve already seen it. Twice.” She was in the bathroom slathering on mascara. “But you can watch TV all you want. I’m going to have actual fun.”