The Story of Us

by Deb Caletti

  I didn’t want to see what the new day would reveal next. I didn’t feel up for it. I glared at my laptop, which sat on the desk by the window. Its big mouth was shut closed, and I was afraid of what it might say when it opened again. Janssen was running out of patience. I needed to get my act together, quick. I had no idea how to do this. My act did not feel like it was getting together—it felt like it was coming more and more apart. Anxiety was shaking me like a dog with a knotted sock.

  “Hey, Woof. Hey, Jupiter,” I said.

  She scrolled her eyes my direction, not moving her head from where it was, chin tucked into paws.

  “Are you a regular dog or a superdog today, hmm, girl? You tired? Maybe you just want a rest from all this too.”

  She sighed through her nose. Her little warm, breathing self there—I didn’t feel lonely.

  “I sure like you,” I said.

  My phone rang just out of reach on the floor, and I grabbed for it. I thought, Janssen, Janssen, Janssen. Then I thought, No, no. No Janssen. Either way, I worried for nothing. It was Gavin.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I said. I ducked back down into the covers.

  “Hello, sunshine,” Gavin said. “I’m just calling to tell you that Oscar and me are driving up as soon as he gets here. We told Bob there was a death in Oscar’s family and that I was going to the funeral too, for emotional support. Oscar’s De Niro, man. Real tears. We heard from Natalie there were chicks there.”

  “Not your type,” I said.

  “Do I have a type?”

  “You have a not-type.”

  “Hey, I’m open to anyone.”

  “I think that’s what I mean. She’s got a jock boyfriend.”

  “Oh,” Gavin said. He thought a minute. A great idea apparently occurred to him. “Hey! She doesn’t know I’m a geek! We graduated. I could be anyone.”

  I didn’t want him to get his hopes up. “Yesterday, on the beach … she said something about the nerds who like Star Wars.”

  “Cricket,” he reprimanded.

  “Oh, right. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “Don’t forget.”

  I kept my mouth shut. Oscar and Gavin were two of my best friends. I loved them. They were kind and goofy and smart. But they had this strong, heartfelt belief that nerds and geeks were two different things. I could never quite follow the logic—something about how a nerd could just be a nerd, but a geek could fix your computer (ha—my words). Honestly? If you watched them do Wii dance aerobics or play War Worlds for three days straight, their argument was meaningless.

  “I thought you guys had to work because of some big sale.”

  “Home Electronics, there’s always a sale. Like mattresses.”

  “Well, great. Come on, then. Your brother let you borrow his tent?” Gavin’s brother, Derek—asshole. Not a good guy. Actually, he was an athlete-asshole, which was worse than the regular kind. His gold sports trophies filled the shelves of Gavin’s parents’ dining room hutch. He was always putting Gavin down, in some verbal equivalent of “accidentally” stepping on the back of his shoe. One day in the future when Gavin got a job at Microsoft and made a jillion dollars and Derek was still working at Shuck’s Auto Supply, Gavin could stand up to Derek with every ounce of his thin, muscle-free body and say, Kiss my Boolean, Derek.

  “Nah. I bought a two-man at REI with that gift card my dad got me.”

  “Great,” I said. Gavin’s father gave him one of those cards every year. I guess he hoped Gavin might go in that store full of sporting gear and come out a jock.

  “Do you know they got a big rock in there? In the actual building.”

  “I know. But you didn’t have to buy a tent. You could stay in a room here. This place is big enough.”

  “Nah. You guys do your family bonding. I told you, Oscar and me are camping. I got some of that freeze-dried food astronauts eat. We’ll come in and use the shower. Wait. Oscar’s on the other line. Gotta go. He’s probably here. Tell the chicks we played tight end.”

  “Your end is nothing but squish, idiot, from too many hours playing Lord of the Sword,” I said, but he’d already hung up.

  I called Ben next door from my phone so I didn’t have to get out of bed. I asked him to pleasepleaseplease take Jupiter out so I didn’t accidentally bump into Ash looking like I was looking. Actually, I didn’t tell him that last part. He came over a minute later and got her. He’s such a great brother, even though he’s an idiot.

  I lay there awhile until I came to the conclusion that what I wanted to hide from was still in bed with me. My mind could do the work of unraveling without my body moving an inch. It was time to leave the comfort of my sweet, isolated, feather-down cell.

  The shower washed away some of my bad mood. This lasted until I went downstairs. In the dining room there was a pregnant woman with long dark hair, and a tall man with one of those beards guys wear to compensate for their bald heads. They both were looking down with gaga eyes at a little boy with a head of blond curls, who wore a bathing suit and no shirt and who was now putting a striped kitchen towel over Cruiser’s head. Cruiser just sat there. He didn’t seem to know what was expected of him. I felt bad for him. The boy yanked the towel and shouted Boo! and Cruiser flinched, startled. The kid put the towel back on Cruiser for another round, and Cruiser spun his head to get it off. He caught it in his teeth, causing the bald man to snap Hey now! at him.

  “Bad dog!” the man said, grabbing the towel back. But Cruiser was revved up now. He set his front paws on the ground, butt up in the air. He thought it was time to play. If Jupiter had stolen that towel, they’d have never gotten it back without a fight. She had the jaws of death, and you had to lift up her back end to get her mouth to open.

  “Cruiser, come here, boy!” Mom lunged but missed, and Cruiser took off on a few racetrack-dog spins around the dining room table. I wished Jupiter were there. If she walked in, it’d be just like when our elementary school principal, Mrs. Benson, would suddenly show up in a class that had a sub.

  “Cricket!” my mother said when she noticed me. She looked frazzled already, and the day hadn’t even started. Cruiser was under the table now, wild-eyed and panting. “Jane, John—this is my daughter. Cricket, this is Charles.”

  “Can you say ‘Hi,’ Baby Boo?” Jane said.

  “No wanna.” The little guy even folded his arms. Wonder who did that at home.

  I tried my talking-to-little-kids voice. “Are you going swimming?”

  Which was obviously the wrong thing to say. John, the kid’s father, suddenly thrust out a hand, stop-sign-fashion, at me, and the mother let out a little cry of alarm.

  “Wanna go swimmy,” Baby Boo whined. “Wanna go swimmy!”

  Jane opened her mouth. “We promised—”

  “WANNA GO SWIMMY!”

  Mom flinched at the scream. So did I. It sounded like an electric saw hitting metal.

  “I’m sorry if we’re bothering people,” Jane said.

  “No, not at all,” Mom said.

  “Look, Baby Boo, lookey,” John said. “Look at the pretty.” He held up a crystal salt shaker from the table and shoved it into the kid’s face, jiggling it back and forth.

  Mom’s smile was stuck. Her voice was singsongy. She sounded like Teacher Karen from my old Little Miracles Preschool when she said to me, “Dan’s doing a hike today. To some cabin, where the original settlers of the island came from? Supposedly there are ghosts there. Gram and Aunt Bailey are bringing their cameras. Ben and the girls are going …”

  I heard it for what it was—a plea.

  “Oh, cool,” I said. I hoped my tone said what I felt. She’d owe me big for this.

  “Bus is leaving soon. I think Ben’s waiting already in the foyer. After you grab breakfast. Look! Croissants!” She stuck a couple of them into a napkin and shoved them at me. She headed over to the big silver tank of a coffeepot in the corner of the dining room that Rebecca and Ted always kept filled for guests. She pressed the l
ever for the thin stream of liquid. Her hands were shaking. Too much coffee herself, or another bad sign piling up against the other bad signs. She popped the lid onto the cup, or tried to.

  “Gimme that,” I said. She was never good with things that required manual dexterity—lids on cups, keys in keyholes, driving, generally.

  “I owe you,” she whispered.

  “WANNA HOLD PRETTY!” Baby Boo shrieked.

  The smell of pot snaked through the dining room.

  Ben stood with his arms folded, looking out the windows beside the front door.

  “Dreaming of escape?” I said.

  He turned. “She suckered you, too?”

  “She owes us,” I said.

  “I already spent breakfast hearing how Hailey and Amy’s mother makes elaborate gingerbread houses every Christmas, worthy of magazines. Castles. Victorian mansions. You can make icing bags out of Ziplocs, did you know? She’s immensely talented.”

  “Hey, I hope you told them how Mom actually got the new vacuum cleaner bag in the vacuum that time without your help.”

  “Come on. She could make the Bodsky house out of mashed potatoes.”

  The Bodsky house was a piece of shit. I laughed. “Gavin and Oscar are coming today sometime.”

  “Thank you, God. I hope they’re bringing their Xbox.”

  George came down the stairs, in another crisp outfit of khaki shorts and a polo shirt. I wonder how many of those he had. He looked tired, though. “Coffee to go?” he said, looking at my cup. “We are off to practice. To hit a few buckets of balls.” I hooked my thumb toward the dining room.

  “Bad night’s sleep?” I said. I knew how he felt.

  “Fucking raccoons,” he said.

  He might have meant this literally.

  “On the roof,” George said to Ben, who looked confused. Ben could sleep through anything. “Right above us.”

  “You might want to move fast,” I warned him. “Screaming kid.” He hung a left. I felt bad for him, getting stuck with us. Our family dysfunction was at least ours. Sure, I had a love-hate relationship with it, but I’d inherited it, same as, say, some ugly but meaningful vase. It had meaning to you, even if it scared the crap out of everyone else.

  “Did you hear that?” Ben whispered.

  “Yeah, I hear it right now,” I said. Dan’s angry, muffled voice somewhere above us, Amy’s voice complaining back at him, a high-pitched rising whine and then silence, same as someone trying to start a chain saw. Wait. Two thoughts about saws in as many minutes. Bad sign.

  “Not that.”

  “I saw Mom last night. She was pissed about something. Upset.”

  “Not that. You’re not listening. Anyway, she can take care of herself—”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Cricket, don’t be an ass. You know, you miss what’s right in front of you. George. Right above us? What’s up with that, huh? Us?”

  “Oh, give it up,” I said. “You bored or something? Please. Us, meaning our rooms? What are you trying to do? You sound like Gram.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  “Okay, right. Uh-huh.” I started to laugh. “If what you’re implying is true? If something like that happens? I swear, I’ll go with Mom when she flees to some airport.”

  “Not without me, you won’t. Anyway, no airports here.” He sounded kind of sorry.

  There was the sound of foot thumps on stairs. It was Dan, clapping his hands heartily. Dan was not the hand clapping type either, but he was doing it a lot lately. It made him look like a PE teacher. “Okay, guys. Change of plan. The girls are staying here. I’ll be driving you guys to the haunted settler’s house—”

  “Dan?” Ben said. Dan stopped on the stairs. Ben contorted his face into a grimace. Dan took this in, and they had some kind of guy conversation that didn’t require words.

  “Absolutely. Go,” Dan said. It was kind of beautiful, actually, the brief, knowing exchange. If it had been Mom and me, we might have talked for twenty minutes about what we needed and how we felt about it. Someone might have cried. There might have been hugging involved. I didn’t necessarily work the way these guys did, but I could see the benefits.

  Ben snagged his car keys from his pocket, dangled them at me like we were prisoners about to break. I felt a surge of glee. “Let’s spring Jupiter, too,” I said. “Who knows what that kid’ll do to her.”

  “Good thinking,” Ben said.

  Gram came down the stairs next. “Ghosts! I’m so excited. Oooh-eeeh!” She lifted her arms above her head in a spooky fashion.

  “Get a move on, Casper,” Aunt Bailey said behind her.

  Mom has always been insistent and sentimental about Ben and me staying connected “later.” Whenever she discussed it, you heard the shadowy backdrop behind that word, the Someday when I’m dead that hovered there. It was more important to keep your ties with your sibling than nearly anyone else in your family, she would say, grasping our hands so we knew she meant it. She called her own sister once a week, and Aunt Hannah would be the person who stood up for her at this wedding, as she had also done at the wedding to our father. Your sibling is your only witness to the train wreck of your childhood, she’d say. And that is valuable beyond what you can imagine right now.

  Train wreck—it sounded so cynical, a far cry from tender growing-up images of cookies and milk, birthday parties and paste eating. But from what I could tell, every childhood was a train wreck, or at least some sort of collision, small or large, every one. Natalie’s mother takes medicine for depression, and Oscar thinks his father drinks too much, and Gavin’s dad expects him to be someone he’ll never be. Our father had an “anger problem,” and our mother left men at airports. But how can it not be so? We get only imperfect people for parents, and then we get a dose of life thrown in—their bad marriage, a lost job, plain old sadness. Flawed Human Parents + Shit Life Throws At You = Childhood That “Builds Character.”

  I guess Mom was right about Ben. My brother was the only one who had our same parents and our same great-grandma, and those exact houses and that town and those particular school lunches. Only the two of us in Bluff House had our last name, McNeal. Dad’s name. And I could feel all of that shared stuff as we got into Ben’s truck and rolled the windows down and got the hell out of there. He was my witness, all right. Those were his frightened eyes next to me when we saw our father strike our mother in the kitchen once. Those were his joy-filled eyes too, beside mine when Mom and him and me snuck down to Marcy Lake and sat on the dock at midnight that one New Year’s when we were kids. Yeah—sparkling cider in Styrofoam cups, fireworks exploding on the lawns around the water, his and Mom’s faces glowing orange and red and gold.

  So, my witness and my rival and my partner in crime. Also, my friend.

  “Maybe Gram’s gay too,” I said to him. “I saw her and Rebecca hugging out on the deck.”

  “Shut up, moron,” he said. But he didn’t really seem to care. He popped in a CD of a band we both liked, and we shouted over it. It was the thrill of a narrow miss, a snow day, a test put off until the next week. Jupiter sat between us, her nose up in the wind, ears flapping. I swear she was smiling.

  “We could drive home. Hang out for the day and drive back,” I said. “Oh, wait. We don’t have a home.”

  “We could drive south to Mexico,” he said. “Eat burritos until our colons explode.” See? Giddy.

  “I saw some place that rented boats in town. You could take us sailing.”

  “Awesome,” he said.

  “Jupiter?”

  She looked over at me at the sound of her name. She waited to see what was required of her. “We can put her below so she’s safe,” Ben suggested.

  We parked in town and walked to the waterfront. As I said, Jupiter had never been very good on her leash (actually she was terrible on her leash), and she was yanking and pulling us forward, cruising around in a zigzag, sniffing and stopping to pee everywhere. We found the shack that rented the boats
, and Ben paid, even though I offered to help. The guy handed us three life jackets: our two, and a yellow dog one. With it wrapped tight around her, she looked like a bright yellow pig in a blanket. We told her how pretty she was, and she wore it around proudly. She liked compliments as much as anyone.

  Ben was one of those natural athletes—got it from our dad, obviously, because Mom could walk into a tree on the street while trying to find her phone in her purse. (This happened once.) Any sport he tried, you’d think he’d done it a hundred times already. But Ben lacked the asshole quality that often came with putting balls into various nets, holes, and goalposts. He was just easy with himself, and the boat glided out and picked up the wind, and he seemed to remember the lessons he took once, even though that was several summers ago.

  We didn’t have to put Jupiter below after all, because there was a nice, deep, indented portion of the boat where we could ride. She wasn’t so sure about the whole idea at first, and refused to sit on the smooth bench. She didn’t like the feel of certain things under her butt (the seat of Mom’s car, for one), and instead chose to balance precariously with her back end in the air if the surface wasn’t right. I understood. I felt the same way about padded toilet seats and certain public bathrooms. I set her down on my lap and rubbed the tips of her ears and whispered that she was a brave sailing girl. She was a fat package in that life jacket.

  “Guess who I talked to last night?” Ben said. He held the rudder in one hand, and the rope to the mainsail in the other.

  “Oh, this is a challenging one. Go ahead. Tell me how much she misses you. She’s cried every minute since you’ve been gone. No, wait. You are a god to her, I know. A sex god. Her life will never be the same now that you are in it.”

  “Janssen, idiot.”

  How many times in my life had I heard that name or spoken that name or thought that name? Hundreds of thousands. Millions, even. More than my own name, I’m sure. So why did the sound of it send my stomach falling? A hurtling body off the tallest building?

  “Go ahead. Tell me how much he misses me. He’s cried every minute since I’ve been gone.”