Bad Blood

by Carly Anne West

  I suspect she really wants us to join her because she needs help carrying the bags home; Dad has the car today. And besides, Mom gets lonely.

  “I have one condition,” I say, and she eyes me with suspicion (as in, suspicion that she’s going to cave no matter what I say, as she typically does).

  “I’m listening,” she says, then purses her lips.

  “Strawberries,” I say.

  “Oh, Aaron, no,” she says. “They’re so expensive, and you never finish them.”

  “It’s my only demand,” I say, making myself sound very reasonable.

  Mya shakes her head. “You’re strange,” she says.

  “What? I like fruit!”

  Mom sighs. “Fine, one basket. And if they don’t have them, I don’t want you pouting all the way home.”

  “Deal,” I say, shaking her hand.

  Mom’s hands are always cold. She says it has to do with her circulation, but the rest of her is always cold, too. When she used to dance, things were different. She didn’t lose her breath when she walked up the stairs. She didn’t wear long cardigans everywhere and pull them closed around her. She’s always been thin, but she didn’t used to look this fragile. She was okay in Germany … we were all okay for a while. Until we weren’t.

  “Mya, grab the canvas bags out of the pantry, would you?”

  Mya pulls a bundle of four or five bags from the closet in the kitchen, which strikes me immediately as an excellent hide-and-seek hiding place. This old house is full of those spots.

  We leave through the side door in the kitchen, not even bothering to lock it. Raven Brooks is one of those towns I didn’t think existed except in old movies where kids like me had paper routes and played wholesome games like hopscotch and cul-de-sac baseball.

  Except I don’t know if that’s why Mom doesn’t bother to lock our door. A part of me doubts that the rest of Raven Brooks feels so safe. It’s just the way certain people act, like they’re jumpy, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Maybe Raven Brooks isn’t carefree and old-fashioned. Maybe we’re the ones who belong in another place and time.

  * * *

  The natural grocer isn’t exactly natural as far as I can tell. More like it plays at being natural. It has these corny wooden signs that are meant to look like they’re hand-painted, lemonade stand–style. Displays at the ends of aisles are propped up on shipping crates or fanned out in a halved wooden barrel. But the store itself is about a third of the size of a regular supermarket, and the bargain-brand food isn’t even the generic stuff I recognize. It’s cheaper imitation crackers and cookies and cereals. The meat counter is dimly lit and staffed by a single, grizzled old dude, and the produce section is little more than a corner of bins holding bananas in various stages of ripeness, small avocadoes, apples, oranges, onions, some carrots, and heads of lettuce wrapped in damp plastic.

  “It’s quaint!” Mom says before we can say anything.

  “No strawberries,” I say, pouting.

  “Aaron,” she scolds, “I told you we might not find them.”

  But I can tell by the way she’s surveying the rest of the store that we’re about to find out what else is hard to come by in this place.

  “Let’s go somewhere else,” Mya says, and Mom shushes her. Mya’s never really gotten the hang of the whole “indoor voice” thing.

  “There isn’t a ‘somewhere else,’” says Mom. “Raven Brooks is an independent store–only municipality.”

  Mya and I look at each other.

  “No chains,” Mom says for clarification.

  “So, you mean, like, no—” Mya starts.

  Mom counts off on her fingers: “Fast food, chain supermarkets, big-box, or warehouse stores.”

  “You sound like a Raven Brooks brochure,” I say.

  “That’s where I got it,” she says, grimacing.

  Okay, so Mom isn’t a fan of this new town, either. Strangely, that makes me feel a bit better.

  “Look, we’re here, we need to make the best of it, and if all of us shopping at the same little town grocer is a way for us to meet our new neighbors, we might as well dive in,” she says, and Mom’s hard to argue with when she’s being reasonable.

  I hate it when she’s reasonable.

  Suddenly, the squeal of audio feedback fills the stuffy air of the natural grocer.

  “Good morning, lovely shoppers of Raven Brooks!”

  I’m trying. I really am trying. But that voice just isn’t one you can help but cringe at.

  We all look for the source of it, and I follow the other townspeople’s gazes to the front of the store near the registers. Standing on one of the wooden crates that are used in the displays is a woman with frizzy hair and dangly, beaded earrings. I can see her frosted eyeshadow from way back here. She looks like a cross between a hippie and a roadie for one of those cheesy rock bands where the guys wear sweatbands across their foreheads.

  “We have a special today on grape soda and goat cheese, made fresh by Raven Brooks’s very own Nicholas Wilbanks and his lovely goats.”

  “Oh, I’ve gotta meet that guy,” I whisper to Mya, who snorts. Mom puts her hand on my shoulder and squeezes hard.

  “Now, the grape soda is limited to two per person,” she says, and I’m not sure this lady understands the purpose of having a microphone because my ears are about to bleed. She doesn’t need to yell.

  “I see you trying to sneak more into your basket, Myron!” she says, waggling her finger at some guy in the middle aisle, and I think maybe the lady was expecting a laugh or two because she pauses. Crickets.

  The grumpy-looking guy behind the meat counter clears his throat loudly.

  The woman with the microphone wrinkles her nose, but the butcher coughs even louder, so she says, “And there’s a sale on beef, too.”

  Then she puts the microphone down before turning off the sound system, and feedback rips through the store. I think my eardrums just exploded.

  “I guess she doesn’t like beef,” Mya shouts at me, her hands cupped over her ears, and I hear a few people chuckle around me.

  A mom with twin babies rolls by with her double-wide stroller, maneuvering it remarkably well around the narrow spaces. “Don’t ask her about farm fishing,” the lady says, one of her babies cooing at the toy dangling from the stroller. “Worst thirty minutes of my life.”

  And with that warning, she moves on, dumping cans of baby formula into the basket hooked around her arm.

  Mom nods. “Well, I suppose we’d better tackle our list.”

  Just then, the hippie/roadie floats straight up to Mom, sidling beside her like they’ve known each other forever. She’s what my dad calls a “close talker.” My mom is doing that thing where she tries to lean back but doesn’t want to be rude, so instead she looks like a turtle, pushing her face back on her neck.

  “We’re all just so glad you and your family have joined the Raven Brooks community,” the woman says.

  “I—um … thank you?” Mom says. “Sorry, have we met?”

  I start to laugh, and Mya has to yank me down the nearest aisle so I don’t embarrass Mom even more. For a person who’s used to performing onstage, Mom is shy one-on-one. She doesn’t mean to be aloof, she’s just not good at pretending.

  I poke my head out of the aisle, fighting Mya off so I can watch the grocery store lady’s face slip into a frown before she seems to catch herself, then laughs the fakest laugh I’ve ever heard.

  “Oh man, this is too good. Seriously, Mouse, you’re missing a show.”

  Mya crouches and pops her head out so we can see Mom in action.

  “I should have introduced myself sooner,” the woman says, but it’s obvious she feels like Mom should already know who she is. “I’m but a humble proprietor in our lovely town,” she says, pressing her hand over her heart. Then she gestures dramatically around the store. “The natural grocer is mine, but really, it’s all of ours, you know?”

  “Uh-huh,” says Mom, looking
around for Mya and me. We dive behind the shelf until Mom turns again to face the woman.

  She sticks out her hand and makes herself smile. “I’m Diane,” she says. “We just moved—”

  “From Germany!” the woman interrupts, apparently knowing all of our business. My stomach tightens at the mention of our last home.

  “How exotic!” she says, and Mom tilts her head at the woman. “Sorry, I still didn’t catch your name.”

  “Marcia Tillman, at your service,” the woman says, but unless her service is gossip, I’m not sure we’ll have much need for her. I can almost see Mom calculating the miles to the next town over to see if we could do our grocery shopping there from now on.

  “What’re we hiding from?” says a voice close to my ear, and I jump, rattling the shelf of canned meats next to me.

  I turn to find Enzo and Maritza holding baskets and standing beside a man in a black-and-white newsprint ballcap.

  “Uh-oh,” says the man in the hat. I notice the writing on the side: Raven Brooks Banner. “Marcia’s cornered someone new,” he then walks past us toward the beverage aisle. “Ooh, special on grape soda.”

  Maritza looks at Mya. “That’s my dad. He’s weird.”

  Mya nods. “So’s mine.”

  Enzo has his hands on his knees, crouching like me. “So, spying’s your thing, huh?”

  Is it? Do I even have a “thing”? I’d never really thought about it before.

  “The Petersons, back in Raven Brooks,” says Mrs. Tillman. “Who would have thought?”

  Up to this point, Mrs. Tillman has been nauseatingly transparent. That last remark, though … there’s a searching look she’s giving my mom, almost like she’s hungry, but my mom won’t feed her.

  “I take it you knew my in-laws, then?” my mom says, and whatever Mrs. Tillman wanted from Mom, that wasn’t it. She pinches her lips tight, her eyes moving up and down my mom before answering.

  “I can’t say I had the pleasure personally,” says Mrs. Tillman, “but they left quite an … impression in town.”

  Enzo whispers, “Don’t worry. She thinks she knows everybody’s business, but mostly people just run the other way when they see her. Or lie.”

  My mom stares at Mrs. Tillman so hard, I’m surprised the grocery store lady hasn’t turned to stone yet. Seems like she’s made of stronger stuff than I thought. Or maybe my mom is just too nice.

  “I understand your husband has quite an exciting job with the Golden Apple Corporation,” says Mrs. Tillman, her voice getting a little louder, and the few people passing by are now beginning to take interest in their conversation, which obviously doesn’t make my mom happy.

  “Wait, what about your dad and the Golden Apple Corporation?”

  The problem is, now I’m interested, too. As much as I want this obnoxious grocery woman to leave Mom alone, she’s asking all the questions I haven’t known how to ask since we moved to this bonkers town, and as much as I want to dive in and rescue her, I think maybe I’m about to get some answers for once.

  So, like a very bad son, I lean closer to hear.

  “Yes, well, I don’t believe it’s been officially announced yet,” Mom says, sounding less in control now.

  Mrs. Tillman laughs. “Oh, Diane,” she says with icky familiarity, “you’ll learn that Raven Brooks is positively terrible about keeping secrets. I, for one, think it’s brilliant that the son of Roger and Adelle Peterson—a famed designer of amusement parks—is designing one for our very own little hometown confection.”

  Mrs. Tillman giggles, and it’s so creepy coming out of a woman who is neither young nor innocent in any way.

  Mom matches her smile. “I’m sure it’s his pleasure,” she says.

  This is where I stop listening. It’s not for lack of trying, but my heart is pumping blood so hard through my ears, it’s all I can do to hear Mya, and she’s standing right next to me.

  “Did that lady say—?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “But he—”

  “I know,” I say.

  I can’t turn to face her. I know how scared she is. I can’t let her see how scared I am.

  I think we both forgot Enzo was standing there with Maritza, too, which makes it all that much worse.

  “Hey, come over to my house sometime. I just got Creeper Dawn IV.”

  If Enzo thinks he can distract me with video games … he’s sort of right because I’ve forgotten all about strawberries. It’ll be a little harder to distract me from what I just heard Mrs. Tillman say to Mom. And what Enzo heard, too.

  It’s time for me to throw Mom a lifeline.

  “Is this what you were looking for?” I say, plucking the first thing I can reach off of a shelf and showing it to my mom. It’s canned oysters.

  She looks at me like I’ve just given her the last donut in the box.

  “Yes!” she says, taking the oysters and dropping them in her basket. “Thank you so much, Aaron.”

  Enzo and Maritza take this opportunity to make their exit. I look straight at this Mrs. Tillman lady. She looks back at me with that same hungry stare she gave my mom, then moves on to Mya. It’s like she wants to devour all our secrets.

  “Nice store,” I say to her, and she squints her eyes. “I like the buckets.”

  “They’re authentic, aged oak barrels, actually,” she says.

  “Oh.”

  “They’re authentic,” she says again, because clearly I missed the part where I was supposed to be impressed.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” says Mya. Sometimes the most straightforward lie is the best one.

  Mom looks at Mrs. Tillman. “Well, when nature calls,” she says, shrugging.

  “Such a pleasure meeting you, Diane,” Mrs. Tillman says way louder than she needs to, and at least five heads turn to see who the Very Important Mrs. Tillman has been talking to.

  Then I start to hear the whispers.

  I grab Mya’s hand because I can see out of the corner of my eye that she’s shaking.

  “We’re leaving,” Mom murmurs to me, dodging the stares as we head for the door. She ditches the basket with the oysters on one of the authentic wooden barrels before throwing the door wide and making a break for it. We have to struggle to keep pace with her on the way home.

  “Mom?” Mya tries, but Mom isn’t having any of it, not right now.

  “We’ll order pizza tonight,” she says, but she knows that’s not what we want to talk to her about.

  So instead of cheering for pizza, we take longer strides so we don’t fall behind on the way home.

  * * *

  Raven Brooks’s only grocery store may not be anything to get excited about, but Raven Brooks’s only pizza parlor is a different story. I’m ready to fight Mya to the death for the last slice of mushroom and black olive.

  “If you value your life, back away,” Mya says, staring me down.

  “How can you eat as much as you eat? Like, how is it humanly possible?”

  “I’m capable of extraordinary feats,” says Mya, and frankly, I don’t doubt it.

  “Excuse me, but I think our guest is entitled to the last slice,” Mom says, motioning to Mr. Gershowitz.

  I don’t quite know why, but I never pictured my dad with a friend. Like, ever. He just doesn’t seem like the “friend” type. Not like that’s a bad thing. He just always seems to be so busy working or thinking about work, it never occurred to me that he’d have an old buddy from school. Especially not one like Mr. Gershowitz.

  He’s nothing like my dad. He’s probably the most easygoing person I’ve ever met in my life. He has this way of looking like he’s leaning back even when he’s not, like he can’t make his body get worked up about anything. He laughs a lot, but not in an annoying way. Just a quiet chuckle. I can see why Dad’s friends with him.

  “It’s okay, Diane. I’ll bust if I have one bite more,” he says.

  “Liar,” Dad says congenially. “You could pack away an entire pie if you wanted t
o.”

  “Don’t have the metabolism I used to have,” says Mr. Gershowitz, shaking his head. “Not all of us are built like football players.”

  “You played football?” Mya asks.

  Both Dad and Mr. Gershowitz laugh at that. “He didn’t make it past the first round of tryouts,” says Dad’s friend. I wait for Dad to take offense to that, but he just shakes his head. It’s almost like Mr. Gershowitz’s calm is contagious. I think this is the most relaxed dinner we’ve had since we moved here.

  “I had different ambitions anyway,” Dad says, and he and Mr. Gershowitz get all dreamy-eyed.

  “You wouldn’t believe the trouble your dad and I could get into when we were younger.”

  “Oh, I need to hear this,” I say. The only thing weirder than imagining Dad with a friend is imagining Dad getting into trouble.

  Well, normal trouble. Kid trouble. Not Germany trouble.

  Suddenly, the pizza isn’t sitting too well.

  “Ike’s exaggerating,” Dad says.

  “That’s a fine way of dodging your delinquent past,” Mr. Gershowitz says, and things are starting to rumble below. “We used to make so much trouble at your parents’ office, they’d send us out into the forest with all the poison ivy just to keep us from getting underfoot!”

  Suddenly, something in the room shifts.

  Mom’s eyes grow as big as quarters, and Dad’s face turns to stone. It seems like the only person who hasn’t caught onto the sudden change is Mr. Gershowitz.

  “But I thought you said Grandma and Grandpa worked from home,” I say to Dad, and that only seems to make things worse.

  “I think it’s time to call it a night,” says Dad. “Ike has to get to work anyway.”

  Then he turns to his friend, his face completely unreadable. Except this time, it seems to be Mr. Gershowitz who understands, even though the rest of us don’t.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he says to my dad, matching his stoniness.

  “Oh no, so soon?” says Mom, but I can tell she isn’t really trying to get him to stay. What the heck is going on here?