Thirty Sunsets

by Christine Hurley Deriso

  Bri is walking out of the kitchen as I walk in, licking gooey butter bar icing from his fingers. He’s changed from his graduation garb into shorts and a T-shirt, but he’s wearing his honors tassel around his neck. I’d joked to him before the ceremony that I planned to count how many times Mom worked the fact that he’s an honors student into conversation throughout the evening, so he tugs on the tassel as an inside joke.

  “Fourteen,” I mouth, but truly, she’s probably mentioned it twice that many times by now. I’ve stopped counting, because now I’m on crudité patrol.

  I open the fridge and grab baggies of crisp baby carrots, cucumbers, celery sticks, and green peppers, then walk them back out to the buffet table. Mom gives me a wide-eyed look of alarm from across the room, as in OMG, don’t you know you’re supposed to take the tray to the kitchen rather than the baggies to the buffet table?

  I drop my jaw and arch my brows in mock horror, as in OMG, Mom, how will I ever make this up to you?

  Mom giggles into her fingertips in spite of herself, then resumes her conversation with Aunt Faye as I dump the veggies onto the tray.

  As crazy as Mom drives me, I’m really happy to see her smile. She’s been hugely tense lately, and not just because she’s in hostess mode.

  She’s even more anti-Olivia than I am, and it killed her when Brian blew off Vanderbilt. I was the one who broke the news to her. I’d watched him open his acceptance letter in the kitchen one day after school a few months earlier, read it like it was a credit card offer, then toss it into the garbage can along with the empty Snickers wrapper he was holding.

  “What?” he’d asked blandly when he saw my expression.

  “That was from Vandy, right?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Well? Did you get in?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah … ”

  I flung my hands in the air. “Then you’re going, idiot!”

  Brian smiled indulgently, a dimple burrowing into his left cheek. “You can have my spot.”

  I lurched toward him, grabbing his shoulders. “You are not blowing off college for her!”

  The smile held steady, but his eyes turned slightly flinty. His message was clear: I’m keeping my cool, Forrest, but drop it.

  But I couldn’t drop it. It was one thing when he was just intimating a change in plans. It was another to toss his acceptance letter into the trash can, staining it with Snickers.

  “For her ?” I practically shrieked. “For that bimbo? Her own mother flaked out on her, Brian!”

  And that’s when his gaze hardened. He shook his shoulders roughly to dislodge my hands. “Talk about her like that again,” he said steadily, “and we’re done.”

  Then he turned and walked away.

  I literally shivered. My knees buckled. My palm opened in front of me, a pathetic proffer to the gods to hand me a way to fix this.

  Done? Can a brother and sister be done? We hadn’t even talked like that when we were kids fighting over the Pogs in our Alpha-Bits.

  But if I’d had any doubt before, I didn’t any more. He would choose her over me if he had to. Geez, he was choosing her over college, which was almost even worse. Brian had talked about medical school since he was in kindergarten. Sure, Mom had planted the seed, but it took, you know? He really is scary-good at math and science. He really does love examining every disgusting bug in the park. He grills our family doctor about the exact nature of whatever virus is making his ear ache. He was meant to be a doctor, and Vanderbilt had always been his dream.

  Until she came along.

  His hints were subtle at first: “Big universities are a total rip-off,” or “I could get my core courses right here in town,” or “I like my part-time landscaping job a lot more than I thought I would.” Mom’s hands would ball into fists when Brian would say something like that, the back of her neck turning scarlet. But Brian had apparently given her the come-to-Jesus lecture too, so she would hold her tongue and hope it was just a phase, that Olivia was just a fling, that she’d soon have a Vandy bumper sticker on her car.

  Then, poof. Even as he was nailing his finals and basking in his stellar SAT scores, he was informing us that his decision was final: he was enrolling in Starrett Community College in the fall, clearly to stay close to Luscious Liv.

  Mom and I disagree over just about every conceivable topic, but even though we’ve learned to keep our mouths shut around Brian, we’re totally on the same page regarding Olivia’s she-devil status.

  Speaking of whom …

  Olivia sidles up to the buffet table and grabs a celery stick. She flashes me a conciliatory smile (she’s fake-nice to me around Brian) and says, “Delicious.”

  Is she being sarcastic? I mean, can a celery stick truly be delicious?

  She flips her long blonde hair and it cascades over her shoulder. Several out-of-town guests at the party have commented that we look like sisters, and I’ve made a mental note to pull my hair into a ponytail to nip the comparisons in the bud, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

  I’m tempted to follow up on the celery-is-delicious thread, but I’m on my best behavior tonight, so I change the subject instead. “Are your parents here?” I ask.

  Olivia swallows a bite of the celery stick. “My dad.”

  “Oh. Where’s your mom?”

  Okay, I swear I didn’t mean to sound snarky. It truly slipped my mind for a second that her mom bailed on her and her dad years ago and they hardly ever see her. But surely she came to her daughter’s graduation … right? I feel a stab of pity as Olivia’s eyes fall.

  “She was going to come,” she murmurs, “but … ”

  An awkward moment hangs in the air.

  “Hey,” I say, “my mom is annoying enough for, like, seven mothers, so I think we’ve got that base covered.”

  Olivia swallows hard, but brightens when she sees a fellow cheerleader, Casey, walking toward us.

  “Hey, girl!” Olivia gushes, and they hug and give air kisses.

  “Did you see that Shelley girl over there?” Casey says in Olivia’s ear. “She’s wearing a strapless dress! Can I commit a random act of kindness by informing her that a strapless dress requires boobs larger than golf balls?”

  Casey presses her fingers against her mouth as she laughs at her cleverness.

  “Shelley’s my best friend,” I say.

  “Oh … ” Casey stammers, clearly noticing me for the first time. “I didn’t mean … ”

  “And, oh look, I’m wearing a strapless dress too. Maybe you can commit two random acts of kindness in one night.”

  Casey freezes momentarily, then says, “You look great in it. And Shelley does too. I was kidding, silly!”

  I observe her coolly.

  “Um … Olivia, come say hi to my mom,” Casey says, pulling her forearm. They flash fake smiles at me and scurry away.

  “Supercilious.”

  I turn and face Dad, who’s just walked up to me biting into a chip. He likes to randomly throw vocabulary words at me—he’s a magazine editor—and I pathetically enjoy it, mostly because he almost never trips me up.

  “The inability to get over one’s fabulous self,” I respond. “Use it in a sentence, you say? ‘Olivia and her A-list friends are revoltingly supercilious.’”

  Dad smiles, his eyes twinkling. “They’re not so bad. I’m really getting to like Olivia.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “Ouch,” he says. “That’s your mother’s look.”

  I dig my nails into my palms. “I give her and Brian three more months, tops. Now that she’s concluded her illustrious stint as head cheerleader, I think she’s officially peaked. Unless there’s a big demand for cartwheels in the real world.”

  Dad tousles my hair. “C’mon, Smokey, give her a chance,” he says, choosing one of a million forest-related nicknames he
calls me based on whatever pops into his head at the time.

  Granted, Dad is a give-folks-a-chance kind of guy, but he knows as well as I do that Olivia is solely responsible for his future My Son, the Welder bumper sticker.

  Shelley walks over to us and Dad gives her a bear hug. “You look beautiful,” he tells her.

  “Like a rock star,” I add, “and I love your dress.”

  “Oh, wow,” she says, and curtsies.

  Give Olivia a chance? I think. Fat chance.

  four

  “So much for rumors.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask Shelley as we round the corner of the mall.

  “Well, it was obvious at the graduation party last night that Brian and Olivia are still a couple,” Shelley says. “Wonder why they blew off the prom.”

  We walk into a boutique and I start rummaging through a rack of polka-dot spandex bras and barely there bikini bottoms, not because I would ever wear one but because it’s the first rack I pass. I’d normally prefer coal-mining to shopping, but our beach trip starts tomorrow and I’ve grown three inches since last summer, so …

  I pull a teal bikini closer and squeeze the fabric between my fingertips.

  “Oooohh, that’s adorable!” Shelley coos. “Try it on.”

  I furrow my brow. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious! I mean, I wouldn’t have expected you to like it, but since you’re looking … ”

  Okay, I’ve got my reputation to consider. I walk away from the bikinis and head for the rack of Speedos.

  “Forrest Shepherd, you are not wearing a Speedo on the beach,” Shelley scolds in my wake. “Speedos are for swim meets.”

  But I’m already thumbing through the rack of one-piece racerbacks.

  “Is it out of the question to meet a hot guy at the beach?” Shelley whines. “Or, I dunno, maybe actually go out on a date? God, you might as well skip the rest of high school and head directly for a convent.”

  “In my Speedo?” I ask blithely without looking up from the price tag I’m checking.

  “That would be an improvement over the sweats you normally shlump through school in. And you’ve got such a great body! Geez, no wonder we spend Saturday nights watching the Biography Channel.”

  I check a price tag. “Don’t hold me responsible for your social life or lack thereof.”

  “Uh, hello? I’ve had four boyfriends already.”

  I smile mischievously. “Remember the one you had to drive to his orthodontist appointments? What was his name—Waldo? I think his disgusting retainer is still in your mom’s glove compartment. Good thing he moved, or you’d be reminding him to floss.”

  “Hey, we’re still Facebook friends, and he’s gotten really cute,” Shelley protests. “Walden, by the way. Oh, and he’s a musician.”

  I look at her evenly. “He plays the bagpipes.”

  “Yeah, well, get Boyfriend Number One in the pipeline and we’ll talk.”

  Shelley glances toward the entrance to the store and her eyes widen. I follow her gaze and see Olivia coming inside. Olivia catches my eye, freezes for a nanosecond, obviously deduces it’s too late to walk back out, and offers a little wave.

  “Hi,” I say coolly as she approaches us, still stung from the way she and her moron friend talked about Shelley the night before. Well, I guess technically it was the friend who did the talking, but still …

  “Hi. Buying a new bathing suit for the beach?” Olivia asks me, fingering the necklace that shimmers against her bronzed skin.

  “Yeah … ”

  “Me too,” she says.

  Oh.

  Wait, what?

  “You’ve got a beach trip coming up?” I ask.

  Olivia blushes. “I thought you knew,” she says, her hand fumbling over her peach-glossed lips.

  “Knew that you were going to the beach?” I ask.

  “Yeah … ”

  “Why would I know about your beach trip?”

  Awkward pause.

  Oh. Because her beach trip is my beach trip.

  This can’t be happening.

  “I hope it’s okay,” she mumbles, her fingers still hiding her mouth.

  Shelley’s eyebrows arch. “Oh! You’re going with her,” she helpfully points out. “How … awesome.”

  “For the whole month?” I ask, knowing it sounds rude but I’m still trying to grasp what an astonishingly miserable turn my summer has suddenly taken.

  “Your mom says there’s plenty of room.” My rudeness has apparently registered, because a touch of haughtiness now factors into Olivia’s voice. She pulls her hand away from her mouth and plants it into the back pocket of her cutoffs, standing a little straighter and arching her eyebrow ever so slightly. Deal with it, bitch.

  “So no biggie if I come along too?” Shelley asks, then laughs gamely at herself upon realizing that Olivia and I are too busy boring holes into each other’s eyes to appreciate her humor. “Fun summer. Good times.”

  “Your mother invited me,” Olivia says, like this is somehow supposed to strike me as persuasive or relevant in any way whatsoever.

  “Did she.”

  Olivia holds the frosty gaze for a second longer, then sighs. “I really hope we can have a good time.”

  I try to utter an appropriate response, but the only thought coursing through my brain is the one that has occupied 90 percent of my gray cells since puberty: I am going to kill my mother.

  five

  “I could have sworn I mentioned it.”

  Mom doesn’t bother to look up from packing as she utters these insanity-inducing words.

  I dig my nails into my palms. “No, you didn’t mention it.”

  “Do you want me to pack your beach towels?” she asks.

  I move from the doorway into the bedroom and pound my fist against her floral bedspread, making the suitcase jump.

  “Oh, quit being so dramatic,” Mom mutters, adding some neatly folded beach towels onto the top of the pile.

  Dad walks in the room and ruffles my hair. “’Sup, Redwood.”

  “Did you know Olivia is coming with us to Spackle Beach?” I ask him.

  “Nope.”

  There’s no satisfaction in his answer whatsoever, because he doesn’t care. Mom could invite the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and he would blissfully roll with the punches.

  “Well, neither did I.”

  “There’s enough ocean for both of you,” Mom says breezily, which is even more condescending than it sounds simply because she knows condescension drives me over the edge.

  “Hey, Mom, are you packing beach towels for Olivia and me?”

  We look toward the door and see Brian walking in, his loose curls spilling out from underneath his baseball cap.

  “Yup,” Mom answers him. “Beach towels for everybody.”

  I exchange furtive glances with my parents.

  “What?” Brian asks me, narrowing his eyes.

  “Nothing.” I offer a peace sign and walk out of the room.

  I go into my room, close the door behind me, and plop facedown onto my bed. I’ve learned my lesson: no Olivia-bashing around Brian. But does being civil require inviting her to the beach? For a month, no less? What was Mom thinking ?

  I squeeze the plump, cool comforter between my fingers, then feel my lashes flutter. It’s only mid-afternoon, but I was up late last night washing dishes long after the last guest had left Brian’s graduation party, then Shelley and I got an early start at the mall this morning, then I found out my summer’s ruined (how exhausting is that), and I’m really, really sleepy, and …

  “ … and don’t forget my rash cream.”

  “I won’t forget,” I tell Brian before running to the store, which is what my kitchen transforms into in my dream.

  Br
ian started breaking out in weird rashes a few months earlier, and three trips to the dermatologist haven’t helped. I tell Brian I’ve just seen a great new product advertised on an infomercial, which I’ll be glad to trot down to the store to get him if he’d like.

  So I go to the store/kitchen and rummage through cabinets until I find the cream, which has a picture of a smiley face on it, then beam that I’ve finally solved my brother’s problem. But the grocery guy tells me, “Whoa, hold everything, not just anybody can purchase this new miracle cream,” but I explain that my brother isn’t just anybody, he’s the best brother and most amazing guy you’ll ever meet, and nothing else is helping his rashes, so he really, really needs this miracle cream, and …

  “Okay, okay,” Grocery Guy finally says, but he tells me in a somber tone to be careful; a little goes a long way. So I buy it, then skip from the store/kitchen to Brian’s bedroom and announce I’ve solved his problem. He looks skeptical, but I’m so thrilled that I open the jar myself and start slathering it on his face.

  Uh-oh … I thought I was helping, but damn if that “little goes a long way” admonition wasn’t an understatement, because chunks of his face start falling off.

  Too much! I’ve helped too much! The rash is gone, but so are his cheeks! His bones are jutting out, and he doesn’t even realize it yet. One of his eyes is starting to droop as the flesh underneath falls away. Brian totally trusted me as I slathered this crap on his face, and now his face is falling off, and OMG, wait till he sees, and what was I thinking, I was just trying to help, really I was …

  I wake in a cold sweat and glance at the clock on my bedside table.

  Only twenty minutes have passed since I dozed off—long enough to have another weird dream about Brian. I’ve been having them a lot lately. Sure, I’ve always had the occasional dream about my brother, but for the past few months they’ve taken on a jarring intensity and horror-show quality.

  What’s up with that? It’s true I’ve been extra worried about him since he blew off Vandy, but that’s not all it is. Something deeper is nagging at me.