before flicking my eyes back toward the road. My best friend. No, she hasn’t had a little fun with much in a while. The boys are yammering to each other behind us, and Susie just sighs, stares out the window, looking like she’d like to sink into the seat and
whoosh
, be invisible.
When she first discovered Austin’s indiscretion, I had to talk her down from maiming him. Now, as the reality has seeped in, asshe’s discovered that she might not be made of enough grace to forgive him, and, with this discovery, realized this thing might shatter every last vision of her future, she’s shifted from angry to broken. Not vengeful, not grief-stricken. Just broken.
“Then I vote for
Grease,”
I say, hoping I can bolster her. “Remember how much fun it was senior year?”
She shrugs.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s time to anoint a new Sandra Dee. You can pass over the crown.” I pull off the highway, turning down the bumpy dirt road toward the lake. The same road I drove down a million times back in high school, our summers spent working the day shift at the grocery store, at the diner, at a local construction job, the nights spent building bonfires and sipping wine coolers and listening to Pearl Jam on the dock.
“I think I’d be passing over the spandex pants, actually,” she says, smiling. “Like I could ever fit into those again. God, yeah, okay, that
was
fun.” She pauses, awash in the memory of
Grease
and of everything that has come after, as we turn into the clearing that opens to the lake. “Okay, why not. I could use a distraction.”
“There are worse things you could do.” I grin, giddy, shutting down the engine.
“Enough,” she says at my
Grease
reference, tugging the twins from their car seats and stepping out into the night, though she laughs in spite of herself.
Though there are easily several hundred people gathered, I spot Luanne flagging us down almost immediately. Her hand flap-flap-flaps, her skinny arm waving us over. Charlie, her three-year-old, sits on her foot, munching on a cheese sandwich, and Ben, her husband, stands to kiss us hello.
“Hey,” she says breathlessly as Susie goes about spreading ablanket and unpacking a picnic dinner of peanut butter sandwiches and Oreos for the kids. “Come here.” She tugs my wrist, dragging me away from the fray.
Luanne and I look almost exactly the same. Smoky blue eyes that are set about two millimeters too far apart, small rounded noses that we inherited from my mother, milky skin that burns on the spot without sunscreen but, as I learned in high school, can be nurtured into just the right type of tan. Yet, despite our resemblance, she is subtly prettier than I am. Her features fold into each other more smoothly; the lines around her eyes have yet to seep in. Though the lines around my eyes have been earned over the years. She never had to do the heavy lifting.
“First of all, how’s Dad?” she says.
I’d called Luanne after the barbecue and broken the news, but only after she swore not to tell Darcy, not to honor the sister code of always sharing secrets. As the middle one, Luanne had a buffer on either end of her when Mom died and Dad spiraled into an alcoholic haze. She kept going to soccer practice or taking her extra biology lab because I was busy writing checks for the bills that my father would forget to pay or dashing to the store when we ran out of toilet paper or reading
Nancy Drew
with Darcy come bedtime, when my dad was “still at work,” though presumably, in retrospect, he was at a bar instead.
Luanne, as expected, absorbed the latest news with the even-keeledness of a middle child.
“Let me know what I can do to help,”
she said, as if he’d come down with a bad spell of allergies.
“Maybe I can come over and talk with him,”
she said, her professional nursing tone on full display. I could hear Charlie clamoring for her in the background and Ben shushing him until Mommy was off the phone, and I was certain
whoosh
, be invisible.
When she first discovered Austin’s indiscretion, I had to talk her down from maiming him. Now, as the reality has seeped in, asshe’s discovered that she might not be made of enough grace to forgive him, and, with this discovery, realized this thing might shatter every last vision of her future, she’s shifted from angry to broken. Not vengeful, not grief-stricken. Just broken.
“Then I vote for
Grease,”
I say, hoping I can bolster her. “Remember how much fun it was senior year?”
She shrugs.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s time to anoint a new Sandra Dee. You can pass over the crown.” I pull off the highway, turning down the bumpy dirt road toward the lake. The same road I drove down a million times back in high school, our summers spent working the day shift at the grocery store, at the diner, at a local construction job, the nights spent building bonfires and sipping wine coolers and listening to Pearl Jam on the dock.
“I think I’d be passing over the spandex pants, actually,” she says, smiling. “Like I could ever fit into those again. God, yeah, okay, that
was
fun.” She pauses, awash in the memory of
Grease
and of everything that has come after, as we turn into the clearing that opens to the lake. “Okay, why not. I could use a distraction.”
“There are worse things you could do.” I grin, giddy, shutting down the engine.
“Enough,” she says at my
Grease
reference, tugging the twins from their car seats and stepping out into the night, though she laughs in spite of herself.
Though there are easily several hundred people gathered, I spot Luanne flagging us down almost immediately. Her hand flap-flap-flaps, her skinny arm waving us over. Charlie, her three-year-old, sits on her foot, munching on a cheese sandwich, and Ben, her husband, stands to kiss us hello.
“Hey,” she says breathlessly as Susie goes about spreading ablanket and unpacking a picnic dinner of peanut butter sandwiches and Oreos for the kids. “Come here.” She tugs my wrist, dragging me away from the fray.
Luanne and I look almost exactly the same. Smoky blue eyes that are set about two millimeters too far apart, small rounded noses that we inherited from my mother, milky skin that burns on the spot without sunscreen but, as I learned in high school, can be nurtured into just the right type of tan. Yet, despite our resemblance, she is subtly prettier than I am. Her features fold into each other more smoothly; the lines around her eyes have yet to seep in. Though the lines around my eyes have been earned over the years. She never had to do the heavy lifting.
“First of all, how’s Dad?” she says.
I’d called Luanne after the barbecue and broken the news, but only after she swore not to tell Darcy, not to honor the sister code of always sharing secrets. As the middle one, Luanne had a buffer on either end of her when Mom died and Dad spiraled into an alcoholic haze. She kept going to soccer practice or taking her extra biology lab because I was busy writing checks for the bills that my father would forget to pay or dashing to the store when we ran out of toilet paper or reading
Nancy Drew
with Darcy come bedtime, when my dad was “still at work,” though presumably, in retrospect, he was at a bar instead.
Luanne, as expected, absorbed the latest news with the even-keeledness of a middle child.
“Let me know what I can do to help,”
she said, as if he’d come down with a bad spell of allergies.
“Maybe I can come over and talk with him,”
she said, her professional nursing tone on full display. I could hear Charlie clamoring for her in the background and Ben shushing him until Mommy was off the phone, and I was certain
Similar Books
