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Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter

Page 26

by Jennifer Chiaverini


  “All it proves,” Roger muttered, “is that you two are equally committed to a to-the-death struggle over very small stakes.”

  Mary Beth ignored him and blew her nose. “Brent, I don’t want you playing with that Sonnenberg boy anymore.”

  “That’s not fair,” he protested. “It’s not Todd’s fault his mom’s a nutcase.”

  Roger gazed at the ceiling. “Why do I suspect an identical conversation is taking place next door?”

  “If you can’t be supportive, then be quiet,” snapped Mary Beth. “I’m sorry, Brent, but that woman is a bad influence. I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

  “I barely even see her when I’m over there.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “But we have midterms coming up. Todd and I always study together. We’re partners for the Physics project. Not to mention he’s been my best friend since the second grade.”

  Mary Beth sniffled into her tissue. She hated to see him so distraught. “Well—”

  “Please, Mom. This way, I might overhear her if she plans anything else.”

  “By all means,” said Roger. “Let’s take the high road. Let’s spy on the neighbors.”

  “If she tries anything else, I’m pressing charges.” Still, Brent had a point. “All right. You can still be friends with Todd under one condition: If that woman says a single word against me, you’ll defend me.” Unlike her husband. She glared at him, but he had let his head fall against the sofa cushions and was shaking his head at the ceiling.

  “I promise,” said Brent solemnly.

  She reached out and drew him into an embrace. “That’s my good boy.”

  Sometimes she thought Brent was the only person who understood her.

  Sometimes Brent thought the main reason he and Todd were best friends was that they both had mothers who were certifiable. Still, while his mother was often embarrassing, at least she didn’t have a mean streak like Todd’s mom. When Brent went to the Sonnenberg house to study the next day, he was so furious he could barely look in her direction, much less speak to her. He ignored her so intently that it was some time before he realized Mrs. Sonnenberg was ignoring him, too. Then, in a flash of insight, he realized that she wasn’t acting much different than usual.

  She always tried to pretend he wasn’t there. It wasn’t just because of what happened at the library.

  He wanted to talk to Todd about that night at the library, but he didn’t know how to bring it up without starting an argument. He would have just let it go except he just couldn’t understand what Mrs. Sonnenberg had against his mother. He wrestled with that question, but the answer was irritatingly elusive.

  Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. “What’s with your mom?” he asked on the Thursday after the quilt guild meeting, as he and Todd studied for their Calculus midterm.

  Todd didn’t even bother to look up from his differential equations. “What do you mean?”

  “You know. Why’d she go off like that at the quilt thing?”

  Todd looked genuinely perplexed. “What?”

  “You know,” repeated Brent, irritably. “The way she barged into my mom’s quilt guild meeting and started ordering them around, telling them they had to make a stupid quilt.”

  “My mom says a lot of stuff about a lot of quilts, but the only quilt guild she talks about are her friends up at the manor.”

  Brent stared at his friend, head bent over his book, his pencil scratching on paper. Todd really didn’t know. Mrs. Sonnenberg had made a fool of his mother in front of all her friends in the one place where she got any respect, and yet Mrs. Sonnenberg had thought so little of it she had not even bothered to tell her kid.

  “Never mind,” said Brent tightly, picking up his pencil and writing down equations with a vengeance. Sometimes he was seized by the urge to punch Todd in the face until he begged for mercy, but if he ignored it, the feeling always faded.

  Although he wouldn’t get his grades back until after spring break, Brent knew he had aced his midterms. His mom was so pleased that she hugged him, gave him fifty dollars, and agreed that he could spend the night at Todd’s. She had smiled so rarely since that night in the library that out of guilt he put off accepting Todd’s invitation until Monday. Unaccustomed to a weekday with no classes and no homework, they hung out for most of the day, watching TV, shooting hoops in the driveway, playing computer games, until they grew bored with the abundance of time. Todd halfheartedly suggested they work on their Physics project, but Brent said he would rather stare at a blank wall than spend one minute of his vacation working on an assignment that wasn’t due for another month.

  Mrs. Sonnenberg was supposed to bring pizza for supper and videos for later, but by five-thirty Brent and Todd were starved, so they raided the fridge and cupboards for pretzels and sodas and a few attempts at sandwiches. Brent suggested they order their own pizza and have it delivered, but Todd didn’t have any cash and Brent wasn’t about to blow his fifty bucks on food Mrs. Sonnenberg should have paid for, so he said he was broke, too.

  It was after seven when Mrs. Sonnenberg finally showed up, with no pizza and no DVDs. Brent shook his head, disgusted, but she was too busy giving them some lame excuse about having to close the quilt shop to notice. She called for a pizza and herded them out to her car to drive them to the video store. When she wandered off to read the display case for some stupid Julia Roberts romantic comedy, Brent picked out three action movies and said to Todd, “You pick some and I’ll pick some.”

  Todd eyed the stack in Brent’s hands. “She said we could get two.”

  “Yeah, but she also said she’d bring them home for us. She’s feeling guilty, so take advantage.”

  Todd shook his head, but grinned as he turned back to the shelves.

  Brent nudged him. “Come on. Don’t be such a craven poltroon.”

  Todd guffawed; one of their favorite inside jokes was to work vocabulary words from their SAT prep class into everyday conversation just to prove how awkward they were. But he selected two more DVDs, and when they took them to Mrs. Sonnenberg, she didn’t complain.

  Todd’s parents finally went to bed after the first movie. “It’s about time,” muttered Brent, shoving the sofa aside to make room for the air mattresses.

  Todd came over to help him. “Why? You tired already?”

  “Not tired.” Brent grinned and headed for the kitchen. “Just thirsty.”

  During their search for food, he had found where the Sonnenbergs had unimaginatively stashed their liquor, in a cupboard above the refrigerator. Todd realized where he was heading when he picked up a kitchen chair. “Brent, no. That’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not?” Brent set the chair in front of the refrigerator and climbed up. “You don’t complain at my house.”

  “My mom’s a human Breathalyzer. She’ll know.”

  “Not if we don’t see them until morning.” He selected a bottle of vodka three-quarters full, then took out a bottle of rum. “Hey. Rum and Cokes.”

  “Keep it down,” said Todd, peering over his shoulder. “She’s a light sleeper.”

  “So she can check on her widdle baby if he cries?” Brent tucked the bottles under his arm and returned the chair to its place at the table. All the while Todd trailed after him, glancing anxiously toward the ceiling. “Will you relax? Have a drink. That will help.”

  Todd scowled, but took the bottle of vodka. He retrieved the orange juice from the refrigerator while Brent searched the cupboards for the supersize plastic tumblers their class had sold two years before to raise money for their sophomore trip. They mixed their drinks in silence, listening for footsteps upstairs, then watered down the bottles, wiped them clean, and put them away.

  When the harpy didn’t come swooping in to bust them, Todd finally relaxed and laughed his way through the Lethal Weapon series like always. They returned to the kitchen off and on, Todd for snacks, Brent to replenish his drink. “We should go get some beer,” Brent rema
rked as they slouched on the sofa watching a half-dozen cars collide and explode. “No one cards during spring break when the students are gone. We can take your mom’s car.”

  “You’re not driving, not after that industrial strength rum and Coke you just put away.”

  It never failed to irk Brent that Todd could drink all he wanted and yet sound as if he were stone-cold sober. “Screw you. I can drive just fine.”

  “Take your own car, then.”

  “And wake up my parents getting it out of the garage? Great idea.” But Brent stayed put, not really wanting to drive for beer or break his fifty when there were other untouched bottles just a room away.

  They were half asleep in front of Collateral Damage when the sound of a door opening roused them. “Quick,” Todd hissed, bolting to his feet to hide the evidence although their cups had been empty for at least an hour.

  They heard footsteps in the kitchen a moment before the light went on. They blinked and looked past the breakfast nook to find Michael setting his backpack on the counter and frowning at them.

  “Oh, it’s you,” breathed Todd, and dropped onto the sofa.

  “You better wash out those cups before Mom wakes up,” Michael advised, reaching into the cupboard for a glass. “I smelled rum the minute I walked through the door.”

  “We will,” said Todd, and Brent remembered that spill near the sink he had been meaning to clean up.

  Michael shook his head and poured himself some milk. “If you make a habit of this, you’ll get caught. They’ll know if you water down the booze too much.”

  “Thanks for your moral authority,” said Brent.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we can’t go to the bars and we don’t have our own apartment like you,” said Todd. “And we aren’t doing anything you didn’t do.”

  Michael finished his milk and put the glass in the dishwasher. “I’m just trying to help.”

  Todd, bleary-eyed from the alcohol and lack of sleep, remained stubbornly belligerent. “If you really wanted to help, you’d invite us to one of your parties instead of making us sneak around.”

  “One, no one’s making you do anything. Two, Mom would kill me if I gave you alcohol. Three, we don’t party at our house as much as you think.”

  “Four, you’re an idiot,” said Brent.

  “I didn’t come here to argue with a bunch of drunk high schoolers.” Michael took some papers or something from his backpack and stuck them on the kitchen counter by Mrs. Sonnenberg’s purse. “If you’re stupid enough to get wasted with Mom and Dad right upstairs, that’s your problem.”

  He zipped his backpack closed, hefted it onto his back, and stalked away. A moment later, they heard the front door softly open and close.

  Todd slumped against the sofa and groaned. “Man, I can’t wait until I go to Princeton.”

  Brent felt a stab of jealousy. He had tried early admission for Princeton and had been rejected, though he was still hopeful for Yale. “Does he move back in at the end of the semester? Because if you have to spend the entire summer under the same roof with that loser—”

  “He’s staying in his apartment.” Todd let out an enormous yawn. “And he’s not a loser. He’s just trying to look out for us.”

  Brent scowled. “Yeah, I can tell how glad you were to see him.”

  In response, Todd yawned again. “I’m gonna get ready for bed.”

  Brent was too irritated to argue. He stalked off to the bathroom, and by the time he returned, Todd had cleaned up the kitchen, turned off the lights, and unrolled both sleeping bags on the air mattresses. He had left the best pillow for Brent. Mollified, Brent climbed into his sleeping bag and said, “Greg and Will are coming over tomorrow. We thought we’d go see a movie and get some beer. Want to come?”

  “Where are you going to drink? The arboretum?”

  “Where else is there?”

  Todd barked out a scornful laugh. “You know, in a year those two are going to be indistinguishable from all the other losers staggering around Fraternity Row every weekend.”

  “Yeah? How are you going to be any different?”

  “I’m going to leave what passes for fun in high school back in high school. I’m not going to be lurking around in the woods chugging beer.” Todd thumped his pillow with a fist and rolled over.

  “And neither are you, once you get out of Waterford. I can’t figure out why you like those guys.”

  One, Brent thought, glowering in the dark, they don’t always have to prove how much better they are than everybody else. Two, they know how to have fun. Three, they understand the importance of friends who stick together no matter what. Four, their mothers didn’t treat my mother like something they scraped off the bottom of their shoes.

  Thoughts churning, he lay on his back with his eyes open, but Todd fell asleep before Brent could think of a retort. With a grunt, Brent crawled out of his sleeping bag and groped his way down the darkened hallway to the bathroom. On his way back, he passed through the breakfast nook and spotted Michael’s papers or whatever propped up against Mrs. Sonnenberg’s purse. He picked them up and opened the refrigerator door to read them, but it was just the course catalogue from Waterford College with a few passages marked. Brent snorted and stuck the booklet back where he had found it, and as he did, he noticed that Mrs. Sonnenberg had left her purse wide open.

  He glanced over at Todd, sound asleep on the family room floor. He reached in for her wallet and leafed through the old photos, choking back laughter at one of the two brothers at about eight and ten years old, their arms over each other’s shoulders, beaming with gap-toothed grins. He considered taking money but decided against it, since she was such an airhead she probably wouldn’t even notice. But she’d notice missing keys, he thought, lifting the ring carefully to avoid waking Todd. She’d be late for that stupid quilt camp, maybe even get fired. She’d have to walk to that quilt store, too, and maybe get fired there, as well.

  Biting his lips together so he wouldn’t laugh out loud, Brent stashed the keys in his jacket pocket and climbed into his sleeping bag. A few hours of frustration wouldn’t make up for what Mrs. Sonnenberg had done, but it was better than nothing. Too bad he could never tell his mom how he had scored some revenge.

  When Brent woke, parched and groggy, the clock on the DVD player read 11:18. He groaned and flopped back against the pillow. He would have tried to fall asleep again if Todd had not sat up and asked if he wanted breakfast. Brent nodded, though he felt too queasy to eat. He padded off to the bathroom and, after splashing some water on his face, he felt a little better.

  Mrs. Sonnenberg had left a plate of muffins and a few boxes of cereal on the counter, as if she thought they were too stupid to find the cereal themselves. They fixed themselves some breakfast and carried it back to the family room so they could watch the last of their DVDs while they ate. By that time, Brent had realized to his disappointment that Mrs. Sonnenberg had left in her car, so she must have had a spare set of keys. He hoped he had given her at least a few minutes of frustration, if not the frantic screamfest he had anticipated.

  After the movie, they put away their dishes and cleaned up the family room. “Are you sure you don’t want to hang with me and Greg and Will today?” asked Brent, giving his friend one last chance.

  Todd shook his head. “But call me if you want to do something tomorrow.”

  Brent didn’t bother to try to talk him into it. He packed up the rest of his stuff and left.

  He told himself it was Todd’s loss, and as it turned out, he was right. The movie was great, and three of the hottest girls in ASB were there—without dates, for a change, so they agreed when Will invited them to The Bistro. They managed to make a plate of nachos and another of mozzarella sticks last two hours, annoying the waitress with frequent requests for the free soft drink refills. When they finally decided to go, it was with enormous pleasure that Brent whipped out his wallet, placed the fifty on the plastic tray with the bill, and announced that he w
as treating the girls. They squealed with delight and thanked him admiringly in a manner that was more than a little attractive, and Ashley, the prettiest of them with her waist-length blond hair and brown eyes, even hugged him.

  They left the restaurant with the girls exclaiming that they’d had a great time and that they should do this again before they all went their separate ways to college. The only disappointment was that the girls turned down their invitation to go drinking in the Waterford College Arboretum, but Brent didn’t care because he had managed to get Ashley alone for a minute and she had agreed to be his date for the prom.

  He felt invincible as they sneaked back to Will’s house and raided his father’s well-stocked refrigerator in the garage. Stuffing six-packs beneath their jackets, they hiked along one of the lesser known trails through the arboretum until they came to their favorite drinking establishment, as Will called it, a small clearing where a few fallen trees had created tolerable seats. Night fell before they finished off the last beer, but Brent wasn’t worried because his parents knew he and Will were sleeping over at Greg’s house, but didn’t know that Greg’s parents, both sociology professors, were off at some conference in Santa Fe. Brent thought they should have just gone straight to Greg’s house with the beer—spring break or not, it was still cold at night—but the arboretum was tradition and Greg worried about his parents finding stray empties.

  Hungry and wired, they hiked out of the forest, cracking up as they tripped over roots and fallen branches in the darkness. Main Street was deserted, a rarity for the hour even on a weeknight, with most of the college students long gone and the bars virtually empty.

  Will stopped at a legendary dive, the one known for carding even gray-haired alumni and for providing free shot glasses to anyone who could drink twenty-one shots on his twenty-first birthday. He cupped his hands around his eyes and peered inside. “Two, three, four,” he counted. “Four customers! They’re not making enough to pay for the electricity. Why don’t they let us in when the students are gone?”

 

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