Miss Behave (The Anderson Family Series Book 1)

by Traci Highland

  I thought the start of the next semester would be awesome. He had called me every day over winter break and I was certain that when I got back to school, once it was clear he was no longer technically my professor, we would be able to date publically. Unfortunately, I arrived back at school a few days early, planning to surprise him and crash at his house until classes started up again.

  His fiancée opened the door.

  It sucked. I’ve never felt so stupid or so crushed in all my life. Mags had to stop me from taking that semester off. I know I shouldn’t have even considered it, but I was mortified and miserable and ashamed of myself.

  How could someone so smart be so stupid? It’s one of those eternal questions that never really gets answered.

  From: MommyDearest@hotmail.com

  To: EliseAndTheThunderdome@aol.com

  Subject: Superglue

  Hey Sis,

  Superglue works wonders. I fixed the leg of the chair you broke last night while watching the wrestling match. I know I’m not the first person to point out your unhealthy fascination with professional wrestling. I guess I should just be glad that you didn’t run off with that guy, what was his name? Slim Jack Maneater or something?

  So Piper’s decided to only call when she knows I’m not home. If you ever get some sort of secret decoder pen for figuring her out, please let me know. When the other girls hid beer cans beneath their beds or I found a pack of cigarettes in a backpack, I understood. I could look them in the eyes and see echoes of you and me and Susan and I didn’t approve, mind you, but I could understand.

  With Piper, I would stare into her eyes and see nothing. It was like she was always his. Always. Like she would never forgive me for letting him go. In high school she was a wisp of smoke, breezing into the house and then out again without so much as a word, always on the go. I never had to pick her up at a party when she had been drinking, I never held her when a boy broke her heart; she didn’t need me at all. She just pranced in and out of my life, seeing me the way a dog sees a tree in their yard. A constant presence and an occasionally useful bit of scenery.

  It’s the same way still. I know she hates mushrooms, but I don’t know her, if that makes any sense.

  And I have no idea how to fix it.

  From: EliseAndTheThunderdome@aol.com

  To: MommyDearest@hotmail.com

  Subject: Anyway

  Who says an obsession with professional wrestlers is anything less than healthy? Just because I went to go see those Chippendales without you in ’86 doesn’t mean that you can judge. And his name was Slim Jim Joe Johnson. And no, I didn’t run away with him, but only because “Slim Jim” was an all-too appropriate nickname, if you catch my meaning. ;-)

  Look at me, using an emoticon. Auntie E moving into the modern age!

  I don’t know what to tell you about Piper. She is excited about Derek working at the Sentinel. I didn’t mention the panty-hoarding, but still, you should have heard from her by now asking you to intercede on her behalf. Why don’t you take her out to lunch? Sit down and have a one-on-one as grown women.

  In the meantime, I need you to take me to American Samoa. They seem to grow delicious hunks of man there like Hawaii grows pineapples, and I want to go and find some. Nothing would make my retirement sweeter.

  From: MommyDearest@hotmail.com

  To: EliseAndTheThunderdome@aol.com

  Subject: You Are Impossible!

  I am certain that don’t I want my daughter anywhere near panty-hoarding Derek! I can’t believe you told her about that creep!

  American Samoa? I wonder what Rosalind and The Daughters of the Royal Mountain would say about traveling half-way around the world so that my sister could find herself a boy-toy.

  From: EliseAndTheThunderdome@aol.com

  To: MommyDearest@hotmail.com

  Subject: Nothing Wrong With Boy Toys

  They would be jealous. They have a new word for girls like me, you know, sex-positive.

  From: MommyDearest@hotmail.com

  To: EliseAndTheThunderdome@aol.com

  Subject: You’re Wrong

  I think the word you are looking for is “cougar”.

  Chapter 8: Hot Guys in Small Cars and Fun with Cookies

  Dear Miss Behave,

  I have recently met the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I’ve never been so in love before and we are both extremely happy. The only problem is that he wants to meet my family. My family is all leech farmers. We’ve been doing it for generations. His father is an English professor and his mother is a district attorney. How do I dissuade him from the need to meet my parents? Also, would it be wrong to hire actors to pretend to be my family?

  Sincerely,

  Quagmired in Cohasset

  Dear Quagmired,

  Your family farms leeches? That’s a rather unique profession, I would think. Anyway, darling, you have to introduce him to your family. If he loves you, then he loves the daughter of leech farmers. If he dumps you after meeting your parents, then he’s shallow and you’re better off without him. And no, it’s never okay to hire actors to pretend to be someone related to you, as karma has a way of biting sweet little things like you in the ass. Besides, the actors will probably show up intoxicated and vomit all over the people you are trying to impress.

  So, make like a leech and suck it up.

  Sincerely,

  Miss Behave

  Not many people are at work on this Saturday morning so our typically less-than-exciting office has about as much energy as a tortoise on a tombstone.

  Which is great, I can get in and get out to free up my Sunday. Sundays are football day. I do some laundry, maybe a bit of yoga, and at one o’clock, sit back with a big bowl of popcorn and start watching the games. It’s a special kind of bliss.

  Logging onto my computer, I scan through the Miss Behave letters hoping to pick this week’s winner.

  Dear Miss Behave,

  You are a terrible human being.

  I sigh and push delete.

  Dear Miss Behave,

  Do you like Bratwurst? If so, let me recommend Hank’s Haus of Ham. If you enter this special code, COULDBEWURST, at checkout you will receive 20% off your order!

  Yum, Bratwurst! But I don’t know if I’m ready to order my meat through the computer. Hats off for brilliant marketing prowess, though, darlings!

  Dear Miss Behave,

  I am eleven years old. I think my mom is in trouble. She tells me she goes to work in the morning but when I check the tracker I put on her cell, it says she is still at home. She is gone when I get home from school and the phone says she is at UMass Oakville. I asked her if she is taking classes and she says no and locks herself in her room. I can take care of my baby brother, but I’m scared mom isn’t telling me something. My dad died of cancer and I don’t want mom to be sick, too. How do I ask her without making her mad?

  -Emma

  Oh my. I read the note again, making sure that I absorb all the information. This poor sweet thing, is she really looking for me to help her? She’d only do that if she didn’t have anyone else. I grind my hands into my head. What am I supposed to do? Clearly, I’m not going to run this in the paper. God forbid anyone publishes some nasty opinion piece afterwards about how kids shouldn’t be able to track their parents using their phones or whatever. She doesn’t need haters like that crawling up her back.

  Eleven? What is that, middle school? Just before? What a positively terrible age. I remember it well, you feel like your whole body is betraying you. All your life you have flawless skin and near-rubber-like joints. Once puberty hits, your body starts to smell and go all Sasquatch on you and before you know it, you have your period and if that’s not bad enough, you have to figure out how to muscle your boobs into constrictive bras and operate a razor in the shower without bleeding everywhere and oh, the last thing this darling needs to worry about is her mother.

  Isn’t anyone around her neighborhood who can help her? Mom worked at UMASS
Oakville for years, it’s where she met Ted. Maybe she would know what to do.

  Looking around the empty office, my eyes go back to the screen.

  A flash of memory pops up in my head. Something I had completely forgotten. It’s of mom, after Dad left.

  We had all gone to bed and the house was dark. The house always seemed to be so dark in those memories. Like Dad took all the light in the house, in the world with him when he left. I had a dream, a nightmare, that I was stuck alone in a cold dark cave when suddenly a bear appeared from the recesses of the mountain and attacked me. I rushed down the stairs in my footie pajamas, still remembering the soft plastic stickiness of the feet as I ran down, stair by stair, stuffed zebra tucked safely beneath my arm.

  Mom was crying. Tears ran down her face, catching in the moonlight that came in from the latticed kitchen windows. “We’re going to lose everything. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t think I can go on.”

  Her voice stung me, nailing me to the spot on the floor at the base of the stairs. I could see her, pacing the kitchen, clutching the phone to her ear and repeating, “No, I can’t do it. I can’t. I’m not strong enough, Elise. I’m not.”

  My chest tightened, I felt like a wedge had lodged itself in my chest and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t breathe right. Hearing her sound so weak, so broken, shattered me in a way I didn’t know I could be shattered.

  I have to help this little girl.

  Dear Sweetie,

  I will absolutely help you here, darling. Can you give me some more details? We will get to the bottom of this mystery together.

  I write out the specifics that I need to get started and hit send.

  I file a follow up on the Dipsy-Dairy break in, and as I am walking out, I notice a light on in the publisher's office.

  So I open the door to turn off the light and find Hunter sitting at his desk. Well, not his desk, technically speaking. It's actually Abigail’s desk but since Hunter is so rarely in the office I don't think he even has his own desk. What he's doing here on a Saturday is beyond me.

  "Hey, Piper."

  "Hey, boss. Doesn’t your mother make you play polo or squash or golf or something on Saturdays?" I ask.

  "You have unraveled the enigma that is Hunter Brookes, clearly, as my polo habit is now disclosed to the world." The light from his smile and his easy grace as he leans back in his chair hits me deep in my gut. I can’t tell if it’s like oh-my-God-hot or oh-my-God-sudden stomach virus. “And you? What are you working on?”

  "Folo on Dipsy Dairy. You really play polo?" Why did I have to open my big mouth? Now I've gone and insulted the guy. And judging by the half dozen empty seltzer bottles, it doesn't look like he's in the most chipper of moods.

  "I'm kidding. I don't even know if Polo has championships." He laughs, pushing a copy of the paper with big red circles around an ad underneath a pile of reports.

  We do for the whole staring-into-each-other's-eyes-thing and then I say, "Well, I should go. I have to get to a pig roast."

  His eyebrow quirks up. "I’m sorry, did you just say pig roast?"

  "I did. My Aunt Elise holds one every year, it's a family tradition. It's been made very clear that I'm not allowed to miss it for any reason short of hospitalization."

  "Your aunt roasts a whole pig?"

  "Yes. You’ve never been to one?" I ask, sort of stricken.

  "I can't say that I have.

  "One year, when I was fourteen. I had to help Aunt Elise and some of my cousins carry the dead pig up a flight of stairs to throw it in their bathtub so they could marinate it for twenty-four hours before roasting. I took like three showers afterwards and I still couldn't scrub stench of pig off of me. It was totally hot. All the neighborhood dogs followed me around for days."

  "Really?"

  "Would a girl lie about something like that?"

  “No, no I don't think they would."

  An idea floats around my head like one of those stupid little adorable sparrows in one of those cartoons and I ask, "Are you busy this afternoon?"

  He looks down at his desk like there's some sort of way for him to the judge the correct answer, "I was planning to take a nap. But other than that, I think I'm free."

  "Well then, given that you’ve been culturally deprived by never having attended a pig roast before, I insist you come with me.” I stop at the door, my fingertips suddenly freezing as they touch the doorknob. What am I doing? "Do you want to invite Sissy, too? She’d be more than welcome.”

  Please say no, please say no.

  “She’s in the city, actually. She’s been… busy.” Oh wow, he looks close to losing his breakfast. I’m not so sure that I like a girl that makes him turn green.

  I ask, “Okay, so do you have to grab your things?"

  He smiles and stands up from the desk, closing the window on the computer as we speak. "Just my jacket. Let’s go."

  There is a certain feeling in my car. Not like a bad feeling, more like a, oh-my-gosh-there-is-a-hot-guy-I-can’t-have-in-my-car feeling. It feels hot and sticky and cold and tickly all at once, making it hard to swallow and filling me with the irrational desire to open all the windows and blast myself in the face with some cold air.

  It’s not that I’m an overly-randy kind of girl, I think. It’s just that he just smells so good. That cinnamon and musky scent clashing dramatically with the strawberry-scented air freshener. Not to mention that he looks sort of out-of-place, just a bit, dressed in a pullover and designer jeans while sitting among my zebra-striped seat covers and bejeweled replacement knobs.

  The zebra-stripe and pink everything isn’t my usual taste in car décor, but it's just that everyone in the universe seems to drive a Toyota Corolla and the only way I can make my car stand out in the parking lot is to make sure it’s unique. Of course, when I went to by seat covers, the only unique ones looked like they belonged in a Lisa Frank catalog, so I decided to go big or go home. The fluffy pink foxtail hanging from the antenna is maybe a bit much, but hey, at least the car is clean, which should count for something.

  Hunter plays with all the frilly things, toying with a stuffed unicorn charm that dangles from the rearview mirror. He says, "I didn't take you for a unicorn kind of girl."

  "Don't get snarky. And buckle your seat belt."

  He raises his eyebrow. "Can I ask where it is that we’re going, exactly?"

  I pull out of the office building and take a right onto Main Street heading towards the highway. "You ask this now? After I start driving? I question your journalistic skill. We’re headed to Little River, Massachusetts. That's where my family still lives, well, most of my family, so that’s where we’re going."

  "The pig-roasting part of your family." His eyes sparkle. No, I mean that seriously. They sparkle in all kinds of good tingly ways but not in the silly vampire way, more like a sparkly beautiful big sky kind of way.

  Look at the road, Piper.

  The road.

  Not the eyes.

  "My oldest sister Stacy is up in Vermont somewhere and my sister Betty is in New York. She might be there today, if mom's guilt trip has worked its usual magic. Only my sister Mags is left in Massachusetts."

  "You're the youngest?"

  "Yes and for what it's worth the black sheep. So, don't go mentioning the whole running around the woods naked thing to them. They get all up on that sort of thing. Reminds them of trouble in high school, etc. etc."

  "Oh, I won't say a word."

  Aunt Elise lives in a place my mother likes to refer to as charming. I have always thought of it more as dilapidated and weird, personally. It's not that Aunt Elise’s house isn't clean, quite the opposite, she cleans everything and manages to keep the place shining and bright, it's just that the Victorian-era farmhouse is so old that there is no way she can make any of it look new. It's the kind of house where all of the floors are uneven and the walls tilt at odd angles as the house slowly sinks into the earth beneath.

  Aunt Elise is also
something of an impulsive collector of things. Whether it’s hoarding Japanese tea sets or collecting information about alien abductions, Aunt Elise likes to gather and protect.

  There are cars lining the two lane streets and we pull in behind a beat up old pickup truck with a ‘my other car is a broom’ bumper sticker.

  Hunter strolls out of the car and over to my side to open the door for me.

  Who opens the door for a girl anymore? I can't decide if the old-timey vibe is all-cute like retro-cute or if it's more of a creepy-closeted-control-freak-50s-era misogynist move. He motions me forward and places his hand on the small of my back, sending shiver tremble goodness wow zinging through me and I think I’m going to go with retro-cute.

  But it doesn’t matter. He’s off-limits for so many reasons. So many good reasons.

  We walk up the staggered flagstones leading up to the front door and I push open the door and shout, "Hey, it's me. I brought a friend."

  Aunt Elise barrels into the narrow, knickknack infested hallway. The floorboards groan under her slight frame and her millions of porcelain cherubs and tiny silver spoons jingle as she pulls me into a kiss. A mixing bowl expertly tucked under one arm she smiles and looks as stunning as always. "Quick, I need your help with these cookies. Bruce's brood is going to be here soon, and those boys of his are like a swarm of locusts, eating everything in sight."

  I have vague memory of said locusts from last year's picnic and still for the life of me, can't remember how they are related. Aunt Elise has this way of considering close friends to be family, so really the locusts in question could be blood… or not.

  Hunter holds out his hand to Aunt Elise and says, “Hi, I’m Hun-“

  She cuts him off by unceremoniously pulling him to her and landing a big kiss right smack dab in the center of his cheek. "Yup, you’re very polite. But I have things that have to get done. Come on, wash up."