It’s Dad’s “I’m disappointed in you” face. Yeah, well, too bad. In the last six months, there’s been a lot ofdisappointment to go around in the Nicholas family. Unfortunately for my father, I’m immune to that face now.
Mostly.
I wander through the crowd for endless minutes, not really seeing anything. I feel like a stupid little kid, running from a strange woman. What was I so afraid of? And it wasn’t cool to ditch Ysabel like that; she’s already pissed at me for leaving her with Dad before.
This is Dad’s fault. I already told him: I don’t need to meet anyone. Why can’t he just listen to me, one time?
I only stumble across the nachos by accident, and then I have to wait in a line that stretches back about fifteen people or so. Just as I take my place at the end, my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I dig it out, expecting a message from Ysabel. Instead, it’s from Dad, and a moment later, my phone starts singing whatever stupid pop song Ysabel programmed in the last time she stole my phone. Nervously, I answer and blurt the first thing I can think of to defend myself.
“I found the nachos.”
A pause. “All right. You in line?”
“Yeah. About ten people in front of me.”
“Okay. So, head back this way as soon as you can. We’ll eat near the gazebo. Think you can find it?”
“Yeah.” I pause a beat, listening to the babble of voices and music on his end of the line. My fingers itch to hang up, but I know my father. He’s waiting, like he always does when I owe him an apology. I try to wait him out, feeling my stomach tensing up in the silence.
“Look, about your friend, I told you I—” I begin defensively.
“Justin, do you know I love you?” he interrupts.
“What?”
I look around as if others can hear our conversation. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Do you know I love you?” my father persists. “Do you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say hastily, not wanting him to say it again. “I know.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Make sure you get enough nachos for all of us.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say into the silence, then I frown. “Dad?”
No reply. I put the phone away with the strange feeling that I’ve somehow been tricked, and Dad’s scored points off of me … but what’s the game?
Sunday Night, 11:46 p.m .
Ysabel
The Myers-Briggs personality tests we took in Future and Family class say that I’m ENFJ: extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging. Based on that list, I’m supposed to be a leader, totally goal-oriented, decisive, and good at reading people. Justin’s test was, of course, the total opposite. He’s all about rules and order, figuring out what makes things tick, and making everything work.
We might have shared space before birth, but we’re nothing alike.
Even the way we deal with stress is way different. It’s 11:42 p.m., and Justin is sprawled bonelessly on the floor nextto my bed, dead to the world. I’m sitting under the window at a table filled with a mess of glass rods, my torchwork case propped open at my feet, trying—badly—to make beads. There’s no fan, but with the windows thrown open and the torch going, it’s not that hot. This table is cramped, though, and the light isn’t right. My mandrel was too cool, and the glass didn’t stick for my first bead. The second one I took off the heat too soon. The one I’m working on now is … average. I was all excited about making some twisty rods for jewelry, spirals of colored glass around a core of clear. I was going to try and use them for some earrings I saw, but I can’t even get started right.
I watch the glass slump into a bead shape at the end of my mandrel and carefully use the graphite paddle and my mashers to flatten it into a square. Quickly I turn a green rod in the flame, pulling a drop of what will be brass-colored glass from its molten tip and turning it onto the flat, square bead.
The colors are all wrong. The glass looks like a crooked, half-sucked
Mostly.
I wander through the crowd for endless minutes, not really seeing anything. I feel like a stupid little kid, running from a strange woman. What was I so afraid of? And it wasn’t cool to ditch Ysabel like that; she’s already pissed at me for leaving her with Dad before.
This is Dad’s fault. I already told him: I don’t need to meet anyone. Why can’t he just listen to me, one time?
I only stumble across the nachos by accident, and then I have to wait in a line that stretches back about fifteen people or so. Just as I take my place at the end, my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I dig it out, expecting a message from Ysabel. Instead, it’s from Dad, and a moment later, my phone starts singing whatever stupid pop song Ysabel programmed in the last time she stole my phone. Nervously, I answer and blurt the first thing I can think of to defend myself.
“I found the nachos.”
A pause. “All right. You in line?”
“Yeah. About ten people in front of me.”
“Okay. So, head back this way as soon as you can. We’ll eat near the gazebo. Think you can find it?”
“Yeah.” I pause a beat, listening to the babble of voices and music on his end of the line. My fingers itch to hang up, but I know my father. He’s waiting, like he always does when I owe him an apology. I try to wait him out, feeling my stomach tensing up in the silence.
“Look, about your friend, I told you I—” I begin defensively.
“Justin, do you know I love you?” he interrupts.
“What?”
I look around as if others can hear our conversation. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Do you know I love you?” my father persists. “Do you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say hastily, not wanting him to say it again. “I know.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Make sure you get enough nachos for all of us.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say into the silence, then I frown. “Dad?”
No reply. I put the phone away with the strange feeling that I’ve somehow been tricked, and Dad’s scored points off of me … but what’s the game?
Sunday Night, 11:46 p.m .
Ysabel
The Myers-Briggs personality tests we took in Future and Family class say that I’m ENFJ: extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging. Based on that list, I’m supposed to be a leader, totally goal-oriented, decisive, and good at reading people. Justin’s test was, of course, the total opposite. He’s all about rules and order, figuring out what makes things tick, and making everything work.
We might have shared space before birth, but we’re nothing alike.
Even the way we deal with stress is way different. It’s 11:42 p.m., and Justin is sprawled bonelessly on the floor nextto my bed, dead to the world. I’m sitting under the window at a table filled with a mess of glass rods, my torchwork case propped open at my feet, trying—badly—to make beads. There’s no fan, but with the windows thrown open and the torch going, it’s not that hot. This table is cramped, though, and the light isn’t right. My mandrel was too cool, and the glass didn’t stick for my first bead. The second one I took off the heat too soon. The one I’m working on now is … average. I was all excited about making some twisty rods for jewelry, spirals of colored glass around a core of clear. I was going to try and use them for some earrings I saw, but I can’t even get started right.
I watch the glass slump into a bead shape at the end of my mandrel and carefully use the graphite paddle and my mashers to flatten it into a square. Quickly I turn a green rod in the flame, pulling a drop of what will be brass-colored glass from its molten tip and turning it onto the flat, square bead.
The colors are all wrong. The glass looks like a crooked, half-sucked
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