Almost Impossible

by Nicole Williams

  Before Mom glanced my way, I made sure I’d angled my body as far as I could toward the door and stared out the window like the sight of pine trees and blue skies was killin’ it on the first Saturday of summer break. The same day when all my friends were getting together at Laguna Beach to kick off the first beach party of the summer. I’d had my headphones on the entire trip, too, but I’d only listened to music from home to the Arizona state line. I’d kept them on the rest of the way, though, because they spared me whatever awkward talks my parents had in mind for this trip.

  “Can you do what, Harrison?” Mom asked when her eyes wandered his way.

  “Fencing.” He shrugged.

  Mom’s forehead creased into several deep wrinkles as her mouth drew a hard line. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. What about pottery? Or cake decorating? Don’t those sound like compelling options?”

  Harry looked at our mom like she’d just suggested he slip into lederhosen and take up yodeling, but she didn’t see it. She’d already twisted around in her seat and squeezed her eyes shut as she massaged her temples.

  Harry crossed his arms and put on the face Dad made when he wasn’t happy. “I don’t want to spend my whole summer learning how to bake. Or make stupid pots. We’re going to one of the most adventure-filled places in the country.” Harry thrust his hand against the front of the brochure, where, I guessed, he was reading one of the quotes. “I want to fence, and mountain bike, and fish, and climb a rock face—”

  “Climb a rock face?” Really, if she rubbed at her temples any harder, she was going to give herself brain damage. “I don’t think so, Harrison. Be reasonable.”

  It was really hard to keep the listening-to-music act up and stay quiet. Who told a ten-year-old boy to be reasonable? Who actually expected they were capable of it?

  Beside me, Harry slumped in his seat. The brochure fell onto his lap as he stuffed the highlighter in his pocket.

  “Hey, we’ll see. Okay? Let’s take it one day at a time. No need to leap right in.” Dad reached his long arm out and patted Harry on the knee a few times, like that was all it would take to make a kid feel better after crushing his summer vacation dreams.

  I had to shift in my seat and bite the inside of my cheek to keep my mouth shut. My parents could mess each other up all they wanted if that was what they were into, but when it came to dragging Harry into their three-ring circus, I got a little touchy. Last time I’d gotten a “little touchy,” I’d lost cell phone privileges for two weeks.

  I distracted myself with my phone. I’d played enough games on the trip so far to qualify for gamer status, so I decided to do a quick drive-by of the social media scene. My dad had assured me there was Wi-Fi and cell reception up here at this Camp BlowsBigTime, but I wasn’t going to take his word for it. Dad’s word wasn’t exactly golden these days. I’d caught him in so many lies I’d stopped counting.

  This might be my last chance to check in with friends and make a few final words before dying to the world for the next couple of months.

  I replied to a few friends’ comments and posts, trying to distract myself from why I’d really logged on—to check Keats’s profile picture. It was still the same—the photo of the two of us staring at that sunset like we’d figured out a way to freeze time. When I found myself relaxing into my seat, a smile starting to form, I dropped my phone in my lap and cursed under my breath.

  That guy was not worth smiling over ever again.

  My phone buzzed against my thigh. When I turned it over, I saw it was a text from my best friend, Emerson. You’re not thinking about him are you?

  I cursed under my breath again. The girl claimed she had psychic powers—I was a believer. Thinking of who?

  Emerson had never been Team Keats for no other reason than believing that dating such a good-looking guy who was also fully aware of it was like handing my heart over to a rugby team to use for practice. I’d defended him, saying he couldn’t help it if girls fell over themselves to brush his shoulder passing in the hallway. They could keep right on loitering at his locker and sliding into the seat beside him in class—he wasn’t open for business.

  Turned out, I’d been in serious denial, as I’d discovered the night I found my “closed for business” boyfriend getting it on with “her” a couple of clothing pieces away from moving on to the next stage. What sucked even more was that the girl I’d caught rubbing crotches with my boyfriend wasn’t the kind of girl you’d automatically think would be the boyfriend-hunter type. She was on the track team with me, got good grades, and was well liked and respected by the male and female populations of North Shore. It would have made it easier to hate them both if she had a reputation of low standards and zero class. But she didn’t. And neither did Keats.

  Of course, realizing that made me do what any other teenage girl would—I spent the next week and a half analyzing what the hell had happened. Was it me? Was it her? Was it him? Was it something she had that I didn’t? Was it something he felt for her that he didn’t for me? Was it because I’d held out for so long that a certain part of Keats’s anatomy had finally fallen off like he’d predicted it would if we waited much longer? If overthinking a situation became a high school sport, I’d be the captain of that team, too, and lead it to another state championship.

  “Her” had a name, of course, but it was one I’d never speak again. Get caught kissing a good friend’s boyfriend? Yeah, that landed you smack in you’re-dead-to-me territory.

  Good girl was Emerson’s reply, immediately followed by BTW, summer sucks without you.

  As a new policy I’d adopted a few months ago, I made it a point not to smile when my parents were around. I didn’t want them to get the wrong idea that I was happy being in their presence, and I sure as hell didn’t want them thinking I was thrilled with the sudden detour in my summer vacation plans. I occasionally set that no-smiling policy aside when Harry was close by, though. I didn’t want to take it out on him when I was mad at them.

  I might have let a smile slip when I read Emerson’s text, though.

  Summer sucks without you too, I typed, holding my breath when it took a few extra moments to send. We were winding higher and steeper up the gravel road, which only looked wide enough for one car, making me wonder if there was another way down. If there was, I’d find it. I’d use it, too. I was four months from being eighteen—an adult in the eyes of the law—and my parents were treating me like a kid in dragging me up here.

  Emerson’s text vibrated in my hand. How’s the fam?

  I scanned the inside of the car and frowned. How do you think?

  Things have to get better soon.

  I wiggled further down in my seat. They couldn’t get worse.

  Emerson’s reply came about five seconds later. She made other text-savvy teens look like amateurs. Have you talked to them about you know what?

  My knuckles went white from the fists I was making. I practically had to pry my fingers open to text her back. No. Not sure how to work that into a conversation.

  How about…Hey Dad and Mom, about that eviction notice I found under that stack of unpaid bills.

  I swallowed as I punched in my reply. Ugh. I’d rather be in denial over it like they are.

  I glanced over at Harry. He’d flopped his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. When Dad glanced in the rearview mirror, I accidentally caught his gaze. I got back to admiring the ocean of trees and tried not to make a face. I was already sick of trees. And I was expected to spend ten weeks surrounded by them and not go insane? The ozone had a better chance of repairing itself with a hot glue gun and a roll of plastic wrap.

  My phone vibrated with Emerson’s text. You should talk to them about it.

  My foot started bouncing. They should talk to me about it.

  Fine. Someone should talk to someone about it.

  I didn’t te
xt anything back right away. I was too busy distracting myself from throwing my fist through the window. Dad had lost his job two years ago, and I got how tough that must have been for him, but instead of picking himself up and dusting himself off, he decided to let it snowball out of control. He still hadn’t found a new job, money was running out, he and Mom only communicated in glares and shouts, and now there was an eviction notice.

  He’d lost his job, but you would have thought he’d lost everything else as well from the way he’d been acting. Mom too. Once upon a time he’d been like a hero to me. Now he barely played a walk-on role in my life.

  The only reason we were able to afford this vacation was because the guy who owned the cabin was an old friend of my dad’s. He’d given us some kind of friend discount, which I later discovered meant a total discount. As in, we were getting to stay for free. Our cabin was older and didn’t get rented out anymore, but I didn’t enjoy feeling like a charity case.

  So, yeah. Trust issues. I had them. Big-time. Side effect of the most important people in your life lying to you.

  Beside me, Harry gave the faintest of moans. Of course I was the only one who’d noticed. “Hey.” I gave his knee a soft squeeze. “You okay?”

  Keeping his eyes clamped closed, he nodded.

  I noticed Harry shifting in his seat, like he couldn’t get comfortable. His face was starting to turn a familiar shade of green as his hand went to cover his mouth. I’d seen this enough times to know what was happening.

  “Dad, pull over.” I leaned across Harry’s lap and punched one of the half-dozen buttons on the door’s armrest. Harry’s window whirred down, letting in a blast of fresh air. For summer in Arizona, the air was surprisingly cool. I was expecting it to be blistering hot and the air to smell like BO. This was almost refreshing.

  “Hello? Calling all parental figures.” I snapped my fingers next to Dad’s ear. “Puke coming. Pull over.”

  Of course that would get his attention. Dad loved this car. It wasn’t even his, and it wouldn’t be his when the lease was up because he couldn’t afford to buy it or anything like it. He wouldn’t even be able to scrounge up enough money or credit to buy one of those domestic four-doors in the used car lots he cringed at as he drove by.

  “Need me to pull over, Harry?”

  Harry shook his head, angling his nose so the fresh air was streaming straight into it. “No. Keep going. I’ll be okay.”

  “Harry,” I urged, knowing what he was up to. He was trying to be tough. He wanted our parents to stop treating him like he was a piece of ancient family china that needed to be handled with the utmost care. To him, pulling over would be a defeat. Sucking it up and keeping his breakfast down was a win in his book.

  That was messed up in my book.

  “Harrison?” Mom chimed in.

  “Harry?” The first thing Dad’s eyes went to was the light beige carpet at Harry’s feet. Yeah, that’s right, Dad. Worry about the carpet in the car instead of your kid whose stomach was unleashing on him. Way to have your priorities straight.

  “I’m fine. Just keep going,” Harry whined, curling into a ball.

  Dad’s gaze went back to the carpet at Harry’s feet before he punched the gas, because we weren’t moving fast enough at fifty.

  Harry was in crisis mode. He was desperate to prove to our parents that he was strong and capable of more than just wiping his own ass and tying his shoes. This was his summer. Since this clearly wasn’t going to be mine, I had all the time in the world to help him with his agenda.

  “Here, this will help….” Twisting around in my seat, I dug through the stuffed third-row seat for the mini cooler I’d packed with essentials like Junior Mints, Red Vines, soda, and…There it was. I pulled the mini ice pack from the cooler and pressed it to the back of Harry’s neck.

  Harry had been prone to car sickness since the day he left the hospital and yacked all over his coming-home outfit. I didn’t know why I was the only one who seemed to notice that any time he was stuffed in a car for longer than an hour his stomach staged a revolt, but it would have to remain a mystery. I’d stopped asking questions like that when I realized there weren’t any answers. At least no good ones.

  A moment later, I reached into the cooler to pull a Sprite free. I cracked it open, and an eruption of fizz and tiny bubbles floated into my face. “Drink this. Car sickness won’t stand a chance against the ice pack–Sprite tag team.”

  Harry’s breath was already returning to normal when he took the frosty can of pop from me. I wrapped my hand around the ice pack and pressed it more firmly on his neck. “Better?”

  He took a sip, then followed it up with a relieved sigh. “So much.” He took another sip, then opened his eyes. He smiled at me and, abandoning my no-smiles-allowed policy when our parents were around, I smiled, too. “Thanks, Phoenix. Thanks for always having my back.”

  My smile crept higher. Part of Harry’s quest to become his own ten-year-old man was picking up a few choice words and phrases he’d heard from my friends. Sick and having my back were two of the many. There were a couple of others I’d had to bribe him to forget. “Thanks for always having mine.”

  He extended his fist toward me. I bumped it with mine and winked. The Ainsworth family’s one redeeming quality was my brother. How this little ball of optimism and loyalty could have been spawned from my parents was the eighth wonder of the world.

  If there was one reason to not start exploring escape options the moment I set foot in Camp GatesOfHell, it was so I wouldn’t abandon my little brother with two people bent on driving their own lives off a cliff.

  I checked Harry over again. His skin was normal, along with his breathing. Crisis averted.

  “Tell Emerson hey for me.” He glanced at my phone and chugged the last of his Sprite before unleashing a burp that would not end.

  “Harrison…,” Mom warned in that tone. The one that basically implied she and her kind didn’t burp, fart, poop, or pick boogers.

  “Sorry, Mom,” he said, grinning at me like he’d just gotten away with stealing an armored truck’s worth of Minecraft games and ice cream sandwiches.

  I’d tilted my phone just enough so Harry could read Emerson’s name at the top. He loved Emerson. As in wanted to marry her. He had good taste in girls—I had to give him that—and she was just crazy enough she might actually consider it one day.

  “We’re here,” Dad announced, finally easing off the gas as we passed under a gleaming wood sign hanging between two more—big surprise—trees. No more trees. For the love of God. This wasn’t natural.

  CAMP KISMET was carved in big letters that looked as if a kid wielding a melon baller had done it. I hadn’t been too far off with the Camp KissMyButt name.

  Harry’s face was hanging out the window, taking it all in, pointing at so many things his arm was a blur. Dad rolled down his window and hung his elbow out. Even Mom had opened her eyes and stopped drilling at her temples long enough to inspect the approaching camp.

  Me, though? No way. Slumping down further into my seat, I plunked my dark sunglasses into place, put one of the songs we played at track meets on repeat, jacked up the volume, and sent another text to Emerson. I hate my life.

  Of course that was when I went from three bars to no bars, trapping her reply in no-reception limbo.

  “This is going to be the best summer ever!” Harry shouted as log cabins came into view. Great. I’d be spending my summer learning about how the pioneers had lived back in the day.

  Crossing my arms, I slumped as low as I could into the seat. I wasn’t holding my breath for this to be the best summer ever—I was crossing my fingers, hoping it wouldn’t be the worst.

 

 

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