Josie and Jack by Kelly Braffet Page B

that we’d been fighting. I looked at Jack and he looked at me. Neither of us was smiling now.
    “For Christ’s sake,” Jack muttered. “What now.”
    We found Raeburn sprawled across the carpet in the study. His briefcase lay open and upside down beside him, and the floor was strewn with papers covered in rows of text and equations and Greek letters. There was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s lying on its side next to the mess. One of Raeburn’s shoes lay abandoned near his chair—the foot it had covered looking small and vulnerable in its yellowing cotton sock—and his glasses were missing; his blue plaid shirt hung unbuttoned, exposing his white undershirt. Raeburn was making hysterical gasping noises, like an asthmatic in the middle of an attack. He seemed unable to catch his breath. He was laughing.
    “Children. Come in. Come in and have a drink.” With great concentration he managed to lift himself onto his chair. “Josephine, get glasses.”
    Jack picked up the bottle and glanced carelessly at it. “Better get another bottle, too,” he said as he sat down on the worn couch. “This one’s empty.”
    There were three clean glasses and a bottle of vodka in the liquor cabinet. I brought them to the table next to Raeburn’s chair. Jack was sitting with his foot propped up on his knee and his arm spread out along the back of the couch, as cool and comfortable as if this were all entirely normal. And in fact it happened once a month or so: after downing most of a bottle of something high-octane, Raeburn would do the unthinkable and develop an interest in us, said interest usually limited to finding more alcohol and pouring it down our throats. Jack thought these little parties were amusing. I found them harrowing. It was the only time I didn’t like to drink.
    I sat down on the couch with my brother and pulled my skirt primly over my knees.
    Raeburn filled the glasses to overflowing. His hand was unsteady as he raised his glass into the air. Neither of us moved.
    “Come on, come on,” he said impatiently.
    Jack reached over, picked up a glass, and handed it to me with exaggerated gentility. He took the last for himself and we raised them. Mine was so full that the liquid sloshed over the rim, sending a cold rivulet of vodka running down my arm toward my elbow.
    “Here, drink,” Raeburn said. “Drink to yourselves. The two of you—you insane fucking children—you’re the world’s only hope, God help it.”
    The vodka burned my throat and settled like liquid fire in my stomach. The chemical smell of it was thick in the air. I’d never liked vodka.
    Raeburn laughed again. The noise grated like a nail being pulled.
    “Would you like to hear what your father did this week?” he said. “You never ask. Aren’t normal children interested in their father’s work?”
    “Sure,” Jack said. His voice was cheerful. “How was the office, Daddy?”
    “Ghastly,” Raeburn said. He was too drunk for irony. “I am surrounded by sycophants. Idiots, sycophants, and toads.”
    “Who?” I asked.
    “The board. The fucking Executive Board of Academic Appointments. They’ve announced this week that Professor Ben Searles, the Rock Star Scientist himself, may he slowly be irradiated by his own experiments, is going to be considered for tenure this year.” Raeburn poured himself another glass of vodka. “And he’ll get it, too, may his teeth fall out and his limbs wither one by one.”
    “I thought Searles was harmless,” Jack said.
    “Searles,” Raeburn said clearly, “is a human plague who spends more time on his hair than he does on his research. The boys love him because he wears motorcycle boots to class, the girls love him because he’s got dreamboat eyes, and the board loves him because the girls love him—and it’s so very exciting to have such a high percentage of female students concentrating in the sciences!” He snorted. “He’s a mediocre scientist and a worse teacher, and if he’s granted