Shatter (The Choosy Beggars Series Book 1)

by Charisse Moritz

  “Bedtime!” I even clap my hands to get the imp moving.

  “But …”

  “Nope. School tomorrow. So you must be at least this tall to still be awake.” I hold my hand two feet above her head. “You don’t qualify.”

  “That’s not a rule!”

  “Sorry. It’s the law of the West, written down and everything. I’d show it to you, but you can’t read big words yet, which is why you need to get your rest, go to school and learn stuff. Back to bed.”

  She huffs, hops off the chair and pecks me with a quick kiss. I squeeze her tight for an extra long second just because I can. She’s therapeutic. If I could bottle her, I’d make a fortune.

  “Need me to tuck you in?”

  She rolls her enormous baby blues. “I’m a big girl.”

  “OK big girl. Sleep tight.”

  She suddenly runs back to Taz and holds her arms up. He recoils. She bounces onto tiptoes and waggles her fingers. Tully was a snuggle cat before my dad’s accident. In the last ten weeks she’s turned into a stage 5 clinger, and I’m worried. This boy could crush her without understanding how fragile and precious she is.

  “Tully, I don’t think …” I try as she chants, “Kiss, kiss, kiss.”

  I imagine the rejection leading to poor self image, eating disorders and abusive relationships for my Baby Sis. Why oh why did I let the big bad wolf right into our house? Breathe, breathe, breathe.

  Taz squats down. I now fold my lips between my teeth, wrap my arms around myself and don’t dare blink. I’ve never seen anything more awkward in my whole life. This is worse than when I convinced my parents I was old enough to babysit and the twins tied me to a chair. I was still sitting there, “Loser,” written in Sharpie on my forehead, when my parents came home four hours later.

  Taz is one giant scowl. Tully either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. The little sweetheart is so full of rainbows and happiness, there’s plenty to go around. She throws her arms around Taz’s neck, smooches him and his eyes just about roll back into his head. I smile. This is good for him. He got hugged today.

  When Tully scampers off, I’m left standing between Taz and the path to the door. Not a safe place to be. I widen my feet, hold up my palms and wish for a lasso or better yet, a taser. I need to calm him down, slow him down and thank him for what he did for Mora. I need to catch and release so I can get some sleep.

  “How about a snack?” I make sure to smile and sound welcoming.

  He shakes his head no. His attitude is a swarm of locusts, chewing on my optimism.

  “C’mon. I owe you. I promise no more mauling from any of the West women.”

  I smile bigger. My cheeks stretch and hurt. His eyes shift toward the stairs, and I get it.

  “Um, my parents aren’t home.” This is hard to admit. We aren’t exactly advertising the situation to the general public and putting it out there stings. So I hesitate, but he’s not convinced. “They aren’t, they won’t be coming home tonight or anytime soon.”

  We stare at each other in heavy silence. I clasp and unclasp my hands, hope he doesn’t tell anybody and then remember this is Taz, the silent vault. I can finally share this with somebody who won’t judge, sympathize, offer to help or do anything at all. He’ll just listen. He is the only one.

  “My dad was in a car accident, ten weeks ago, and he’s still in the hospital. He’s been moved to the Mayo Clinic and isn’t doing so good. My mom is staying there, in Minnesota to be with him, and I’m handling everything here, so she can just concentrate on my dad. Except, there’s all these medical bills, hotel bills, car rental bills, and I can’t even figure out my calculus homework or how to mow the lawn.” I shrug and sniff. I thought sharing would feel good, but I might burst into messy tears. If I let that get started, I’ll never stop, and I refuse to be the weak link in the West family chain. There’s also the fact that Taz looks as if I just sprayed him with snot.

  “I’m making eggs!” I announce this as if I am Giorgio Armani planning to bring back the tankini. I throw a hand in the general direction of the table, where a pair of stinky hockey gloves creates a centerpiece. A half dozen toy cars, crayons and stray puzzle pieces litter the floor. A jock strap hangs off one of the chairs. I keep a slightly cleaner home than the monkey cage at the zoo. “Have a seat.”

  He doesn’t sit. I figure it best to ignore him. I search the fridge, sniff the milk and find a tupperware container of green bits way in the back. Are those peppers? Score. I crack a few eggs, pick out bits of shell, dump the whole mess into a skillet and add the peppers with a flourish. Crap. It’s celery. Who chopped up celery? Oh wait. I did. For potato salad. How long does it take celery to spoil? Should it be soft? And wet? There’s still eggshells floating around in the mix and is that a sock in the toaster? Why are the eggs already sticking to the pan? Good thing Theo removed the batteries from the smoke alarm. That was getting super annoying. I adjust the burner a little higher to speed things up and dig with the spatula.

  “Today in school, I guess it’s yesterday now,” I say, glancing over my shoulder and happy to see Taz sitting at the table. “When I said you smell, it came out wrong and I’m sorry. I meant, you actually smell …” I look up at the ceiling, searching for the perfect word. “Oh crap. I’m doing it again. You smell good, OK? You. Smell. Good.” I spin around and curtsy. It’s weird.

  Sam is embarrassed for me. He moves up next to me and licks my bare foot in a show of solidarity. After all, I caught him drinking out of the toilet and never told anybody. “Such a good puppy.” I bend down to scratch his head.

  The eggs are burning.

  “Shit. I mean crap. Dammit, that’s another quarter.” I shut off the burner, stick my hand in an oven mitt and use the spatula to chisel at the eggs. I’m scraping the pile onto the plate when I notice Taz twitching like Dr. Frankenstein’s latest experiment. I quit with the spatula and he calms. Just to check, I scratch metal against skillet one more time. All ten digits spasm against his legs. Huh.

  I carry the plate and silverware to the table. It’s all for him. No way can I eat anything. The Grossaghetti dinner has returned to the stage for an encore.

  “Juice?”

  He doesn’t answer, doesn’t nod, nothing, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure my scintillating company isn’t the reason he’s still here. The boy is hungry enough to endure me. The jeans hanging off his skinny butt give him away. My bleeding heart ignores the insult, and I pour him a glass of orange juice to wash down my cooking. My eggs are to an omlette what possums are to roadkill.

  Retreating back to the counter, I stay behind him so he can pretend I’m not even here. I twist a dishcloth between my hands and wait, but he doesn’t even pick up the fork. He sits there. I stand here. He looks petrified, and I mean that in every sense of the word, both terrified and fossilized.

  “I know, I know,” I finally say. “I can’t cook. I’m not sure what goes wrong. I follow recipes but nothing turns out. Mora has poison control programmed into her phone, and the twins have nightly bets on who pukes first. Theo says I have a promising future in weight loss programs, and Tully is living off cereal. It’s OK. You don’t have to eat it. I could make toast? I can usually manage toast.”

  I wait. Just when I am grinding my patience into a sharpened spear and preparing to stab him with it, Taz nudges the chair next to him with his foot and pats the seat.

  “Oh. Sure. I can do that.” I perch as if taking the witness stand.

  He angles his chair so it’s facing me and stares at my toes for a second. I wish I’d painted them. His eyes oh so slowly slide up my legs, over my belly and chest, dragging shivers, and even though I’m expecting it, the blue of them is so potent, I startle.

  He rubs his palms against his jeans and says quietly, “Thanks.”

  Then he eats. I watch the controlled, graceful movements of his hands and am fascinated. No one in this house eats with such appreciation for every bite. I also appreciate every bite, because I’m feasting
on the curve of his mouth. The little glimpses of his tongue are strangely intimate.

  I study the way his scars shift across his face and wonder, wonder, wonder about him. He is a mystery sealed inside a little box, inside a larger box, wrapped in a hundred layers of paper and tied with knotted twine and every barrier is a test of my patience and determination.

  He picks pieces of eggshell from his lips and sets them carefully on the edge of the plate but eats the rest. Without ever once looking at or speaking to me. I bite my lower lip and try not to shout, look at me, talk to me, pay attention to me.

  If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m no good with silence and not happy with how easily he’s forgotten the younger me. So I resort to babbling. “When we were in middle school, I had to pack my lunch. All my friends bought from the cafeteria, but my family couldn’t afford it. So I got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, every single day, in a plain brown bag.”

  Embarrassed by my secondhand everything, afraid of getting teased, I crawled under the stairwell to eat lunch and found Taz, crouched in that small, dirty space. I’m not sure who or what he was hiding from, but the first couple of times, we didn’t speak. I offered half of my sandwich. He took it. Looking back, there’s no reason he should remember. So why do I?

  “I’d give almost anything for my mom to make me another one of those sandwiches. They were awesome.”

  Taz clears his throat. His fingers tippy toe against the table top and he says, “I remember.”

  He remembers? I am suddenly a pageant contestant, receiving her sash and crown. I contain myself to a smile but even that’s a bit much for him. His nose wrinkles and he’s seconds away from a vapor trail. So I push. With my big family, I never get what I want by sitting quietly.

  “Will you tell me?” I draw the pattern of his scars on my face. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I’d really like to know what happened.”

  He looks at me for a long time, eyes straight on mine. He’s debating whether or not I am worthy of his secrets. I’m not kidding myself into thinking Taz is a good boy with a bad reputation, but I know we could make a difference for each other, if he’d just give me a chance.

  I wait, hopeful, until his eyes lift from mine. They focus on my forehead and his nostrils flare. He’s about to lie to me.

  “Car accident.”

  Nope. I sag.

  “I’m sorry.” I take one more chance and place my hand on top of his. He jerks away, jumps up so fast his chair tips backward. Sam growls. Taz snarls back, and I snap, “Stop that,” not sure which one I’m scolding. It doesn’t really matter because that’s the end of our evening. The frantic boy mumbles a “thanks” and “bye” and takes off quicker than the Roadrunner can say, “beep, beep.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Tia:

  It should be illegal to set an alarm for five o’clock in the morning. I yawn and push into my stride. This is the one thing I do just for me, and neither rain nor sleet nor late night dealing with a drunken sister shall keep me from my appointed daily run.

  The sidewalk is damp with dew and fallen leaves scatter across my path. It’s September, the weather changing, time passing while my family is at a standstill. A once well-oiled machine, the West tribe is now missing a crucial cog and with every day that goes by, we get a little rusty, a bit more broken. I worry we might become nothing more than separate bits and pieces, never to function properly again.

  On that happy note ...

  I mentally pick myself up, brush myself off and spot a runner up ahead. With a jolt of surprise, I recognize him. How exciting. Taz is a fellow runner. We have something in common. He is barefoot, sans earbuds, wearing shorts, and I’m a fan of the lean cords of muscle defining the backs of his legs. He is a goal bigger than digging crud out of the bathtub drain, and I make chase. I kick into a full out sprint and imagine flying up beside him, sharing the sidewalk, making a happy habit of starting our days together.

  I nearly blow a lung. My knee complains. I can’t begin to catch him. I can’t even close within harpoon range. I’m tempted to glance behind me. What the heck is this dude running from? I consider calling out to him but decide not to because … well … I’m not convinced he’d stop for me. And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a stumbling, sweaty stop.

  Hands on knees, breathing through my mouth, feeling like extreme suck, I take a minute to mentally thank Gibson Tazmerek for adding another checkmark to the failure column of my life before heading home. Up the steps, across the porch, through the door, toe my shoes off and scratch Sam behind the ears. I fill his bowl and my glass from the faucet and think back to when bottled water miraculously appeared in the refrigerator like the love child of ice and purity. Bottled water costs money. Tap water is free. Under my rule, we have become a tap water family.

  Bogart meows for food.

  “If you’re hungry, go dig under the couch cushions,” I tell him. I know there’s crushed Doritos under there, and if our worthless cat showed the least little bit of ambition, he could dig that green M&M out of the heater grate.

  I shower, get dressed and for some stupid reason, make the effort to fix my hair and apply mascara. I am an idiot with lush lashes surrounding puffy eyes and am now behind schedule. I bang on Mora’s door, hear Theo moving around in the bathroom, wake the twins, move one door down and take one second to watch Tully sleep. She is straight from Whoville and my ribs might crack from the supersizing of my heart. Oh how I hope my failures don’t cause hers.

  Brushing a pile of white blonde curls off her forehead, I realize I never took a picture to commemorate her first day of kindergarten, and my heart shrinks back down to the size of a lemon seed.

  “Morning sweet girl.” The corners of her mouth curl up and she wiggles.

  “Is Tummy still here?”

  I was really hoping she forgot. I raspberry her. “Just this tummy right here.”

  I wake the twins again, stealing their pillows, then go back and convince Tully to save the tutu and rain boots for the weekend. I fling Mora’s door open and threaten to take her picture and post it on Instagram if she doesn’t get up right this instant. She says she’s sick. I say good. Returning to Ten and Hem, I grab each by an ankle and drag them to the floor. As they thud, I say, “If I come back, I will super glue your butt cheeks together. If you fart, you will explode.” This gets them moving.

  “Theo!” shouts Mora as she bangs on the bathroom door. “If you’re jerking off in there, I swear to Christ!”

  “Quarter!” I yell at her.

  The tribe gathers at the kitchen counter. We are all blonde in varying shades from straight to curly, and if we mingled into a crowd, you’d pick out my brothers and sisters quicker than the peanuts from the chex mix. We all have the same mouths. If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “You’re one of the West kids, right?” I’d have more singles than a ninety-nine cent stripper.

  “No bread?” Theo rummages in the fridge.

  “I forgot.” I am the worst big sister on the planet. My siblings will mostly likely starve, carry their meager belongings in stolen shopping carts, forage for meals in dumpsters and beg for spare change. Which reminds me … I drop a handful of quarters into the swear jar.

  “Cracker sandwiches,” Theo tells Tully with a wink. He unearths a box of Saltines from the cupboard and starts spreading peanut butter on them. “Guess it’s our lucky day.”

  At this moment, he is my favorite sibling.

  “You know why they call them crackers, right?” asks Ten. “Because they make ‘em out of crud from butt cracks.”

  “Ew!” squeals Tully.

  At this moment, Ten is my least favorite sibling.

  “Just teasing.” He offers up the grin that will one day break hearts. “But stay away from brownies.”

  “Why?” Tully wants to know.

  Before my disgusting little brother can enlighten her, I cut in. “Has anybody seen my phone?” I turn in a circle and zero in on two ten y
ear olds. “Where is it?”

  Hem sets up the lunch bags, shrugs and bites his lip. “Maybe it’s roaming.”

  Ten snickers and drops juice boxes into each bag. Mora smears grape jam on crackers, checks her reflection in the toaster and says, “Gah! I feel like crap, we’re out of conditioner, my ends are totally fuzzing and my nose is too big.”

  “Your nose is fine. Whose turn is it to feed Booger?”

  “Bogart,” Tully corrects me. She matches the cracker halves into sandwiches. “It’s Mora’s turn.”

  “If the cat won’t live up to his name, I refuse to call him by it,” I say this loud enough for the lazy feline to overhear. “Mora feed Booger.”

  “He’s not my cat. And noses keep growing. By the time I’m forty, I’ll have a giant nose.”

  “He’s nobody’s cat. He’s just visiting, a temporary guest until some nice family is gullible enough to take him on, and you’re fifteen. Could we wait, maybe twenty years, before we start worrying about your nose?” I give the twins the stink eye. They’re now toasting Pop Tarts for everybody and whispering. Whispering is never good. “If Mrs. Hardick calls me again, you two are looking at buzz cuts and yard work.”

  “You’re the one who rescued the stupid Booger,” Mora accuses.

  “My mistake. I had no idea Bogart the beautiful kitten would grow into Booger the barfing cat.”

  “Bogart!” Tully shouts.

  “We want new backpacks,” says Ten.

  I peel the backpacks hanging off the hooks on the wall and switch them. “There. You each have a new backpack.”

  “And quit scratching your balls,” Morra throws at them.

  “I’m not scratching,” Hem argues. “I’m adjusting.”

  “My phone? Anybody?” Between me losing it and the twins hiding it, I don’t know why I bother. “Somebody call me so I can find it.”