She’d been talking so much that she’d completely pulled me back from the brink without even knowing I’d been there or why. The sadness that lingered in the recesses of my mind when I thought of Greg receded further as Jolene’s gap-toothed grin filled my vision and kicked up my own lips. And she thought I had superpowers.
“Come on, what did your mom think of the picture?”
After she’d gotten over her initial shock, Mom had stared at it long enough to comment that Jolene was pretty. Which I guess she was. She’d worn her hair braided back both times I’d seen her the other weekend, but this time I could see that it was thick and wavy, almost rippled. It was pretty. And when she was smiling, she was, too. Her upper lip was smaller than her lower and her chin was a little pointy, but smiling made her look like an elf or something. Mischievous edging toward dangerous.
I didn’t think Mom had looked at the picture and seen much beyond Greg. But she’d asked for another picture, and I could give her that. She needed something to hold on to when Jeremy and I weren’t with her, even if it was only an idea.
“She liked it,” I said. “So yeah, mission accomplished. And she’s expecting another picture if you’re up for it.”
“I don’t know. Are you going to freak out on me again?”
“As long as you don’t actually lick my face, I think I’m good.”
Jolene tapped her chin with her index finger a few times. “Hmm. Normally I don’t like to work with these kinds of creative restrictions, but if you insist.” She knee-walked across the bed to me and stuck out her hand. “Adam Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
It was the beginning of something.
Jolene
When I woke up on Saturday, the view outside my window was a glittering white wonderland, incredibly rare for the beginning of October. The street hadn’t yet been plowed and the cars below were fluffy white balls. This was the first weekend since I’d started coming to Dad’s apartment that I didn’t immediately pull the covers back over my head, hoping to shorten the day by sleeping through as much of it as possible. It was a strange sensation to view the prospect of getting up with anything but resignation, let alone tingling anticipation. Ideas danced in my head as I hopped out of bed and to the window. I grabbed my camera and captured the fog of my breath on the glass and then traced a smiling sun high in one corner.
I hesitated at my door and listened. Silence. Still, I turned the knob slowly. Shelly claimed she was an early riser, but she’d been up before me only twice before. Not that I was willing to gamble. I scanned every inch of the living room before fully opening my door.
Staying on the balls of my feet, I padded into the kitchen and scrounged up breakfast for myself and even raided Shelly’s vegetable drawer for the one item I knew I’d need for the day I had planned. When I was outfitted with my full regalia of winter wear, I slipped quiet as a ninja into the hall and entertained myself by imaging I was in a John Woo–style action film, hugging the wall and side-walking the ten feet down to Adam’s apartment. I stopped short of attempting an elaborately choreographed parkour number that I was in no way capable of doing but would have looked so cool in a series of tight close-up shots.
I stopped outside Adam’s door and listened. He’d said he was typically awake hours before his dad and brother, a claim that I was about to test as I rapped softly on his apartment door.
My first thought, when he opened his door, was that it wasn’t fair that his bedhead looked so cute when mine looked like I’d slept in a jet engine. The second was that he smiled when he saw me. It made me feel like my coat was suddenly too warm.
“Hey,” he said, his voice husky with sleep. He probably hadn’t used it yet that morning.
“Hey.” I rocked back and forth on my toes, inexplicably excited. “I have an idea about our next picture for your mom that will double as a scene for a film I’m working on if you’re okay with a little quid pro quo.”
He took in my clothes, including the scarf, hat, and gloves. “Sure, give me a second to brush my teeth and stuff, then I’ll grab my coat.”
Boy stuff apparently took a really long time. As the minutes ticked by, I sighed and lowered the bag with my camera in it.
A guy with thinning blond hair who looked to be in his late twenties came out of the apartment across and one down from Adam’s and smiled at me. I wasn’t sure how, exactly, but it was different than the way Adam had smiled at me.
“Hey there. I don’t think we’ve met before. I just moved in.”
I shifted a little, giving him my back, and pulled out my phone. I wasn’t up for playing nice with the neighbors. Well, except Adam. “Sorry about that,” I mumbled.
He laughed too hard for the joke, and I pretended to take a call so he’d take the hint.
He did eventually. “I’ll let you go then. Hopefully we’ll run into each other again some morning. We early birds have to stick together, right?”
I sort of nodded and raised a hand distractedly in his direction while pretending to be deep in conversation on my phone until he was gone. After that, I still had to wait another five minutes before Adam reappeared wearing a camel-colored coat with a fleece collar. The bedhead was gone and his hair was damp. He’d had the slightest bit of stubble on his chin earlier, but now his skin looked perfectly smooth. I wondered if he’d shaved for the picture, or me.
I picked up my bag. “I feel like being five today.”
“Okay,” he said with a hesitant smile. “What does that mean?”
I pulled Shelly’s carrot out of my pocket. “When’s the last time you built a snowman?”
“Kindergarten, maybe.”
“Then we’re about to go back in time to glue eating and scheduled nap times.” I wrapped my gloved hand around his, an act that made his eyes widen for a second and tugged him to the stairway. “Not that I ever ate glue.” I glanced over my shoulder at him. “But you sort of look like the type.”
“You’re pretty mean for a girl I let hang out in my room all night,” he said, but there was a hint of laughter in his voice.
“I don’t hear you denying it.”
“What did you do in kindergarten then?”
“I was a thief. Used to steal all the good stuff from the other kids’ lunches. Then I’d try to play it cool walking around with bags of chips stuffed into my tights. Trust me, I’d much rather have been a glue eater.”
“So you were the weird kid?”
“Oh no, I was super popular.” I grinned at him and reached out to push open the double glass doors that led outside. “I had all the good food.”
* * *
I took us to the grassy area at the nearby elementary school, which had an easily hopped fence. Sure, the kids might kill our snowman come Monday, but I felt like I was giving him a chance.
I made sure to get a lot of footage of Adam’s hands as we rolled the body segments together and stacked them one by one before stepping back to check our progress.
“Um,” I said.
“Yeah, I think we did something wrong.”
“Or brilliant. Look, he’ll be a middle-aged snowman complete with a beer gut. This is what we call serendipity.”
“Or we accidentally switched his lower section with his midsection.”
“Either way, I’m digging him.” I added the carrot nose and found two rocks for the eyes. He still looked unfinished, but there weren’t any nearby trees with branches that we could reach, so I unwound my scarf and added it. “Much better.” I surveyed our armless creation and took a slow pan shot with my camera before lowering it. “So this is how Dr. Frankenstein felt. Huh.”
“Not everything you hoped he’d be?”
“Not quite. I mean, look at him. He has no mouth. He doesn’t know what to feel.” I leaned forward. “Are you happy, Mr. Snowman? Are you going to
blame us later for your lousy childhood?” I gestured at our snowman and turned to Adam. “Well I can’t do anything when he’s like this. Maybe you can talk to him.”
Adam stepped forward and placed a hand on Mr. Snowman’s shoulder, doing something with the other that I couldn’t see. “There,” he said, stepping aside. “He’s forgiven us, and he’s ready to raise his own dysfunctional snow kids.”
Mr. Snowman had a semicircle carved under his nose. He was smiling. I was, too.
We positioned ourselves a few feet in front of Mr. Snowman, making sure he was clearly visible in the background, and snapped the pic. Adam didn’t let me get my hands anywhere near his phone and scrutinized the photo for a solid minute before deciding it was okay.
“Vain much?” I asked as we set out in search of some playground equipment that wasn’t iced over.
He shrugged in answer. Okay then.
The swings turned out to be our only option. “Do your parents get along?” I asked, filming my knees as I pumped my legs while Adam only swayed slightly.
“Define get along.”
“Can they talk to each other without lawyers present? Can they be in the same room without screaming obscenities? Are they constantly after you to spy on each other?”
“My mom baked my dad his favorite pie last week and had my brother drop it off. Just because.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s... I don’t know what that is.”
Adam twisted toward me, pulling his arm inside the chain of his swing. I couldn’t help lifting my camera for a few seconds to capture him under the guise of putting it away for good. “It’s messed up. People split up when they don’t like each other anymore. When my dad moved out, my mom helped him pack. Like, they literally did it together.”
“You have to have some idea why they split.”
Adam looked down at his hands. Clearly I’d asked the wrong question. Maybe it was something horrible, like his parents finding out they were related. I suppressed a shudder and changed the subject before Adam became completely comatose.
We left the swings and our snowman and headed back to the apartment as flurries of snow began falling. Our conversation lagged the closer we got, drying up completely when we reached the parking lot.
“So that was fun,” I said.
“Yeah.” Adam had his hands in his pocket and was so busy staring at the building it was like I wasn’t even there.
Super awesome feeling.
I glanced up at our floor. “And that won’t be fun.”
His lips barely moved when he answered. “No.”
I didn’t say that it was already not fun, but I doubted he would have heard that. I suppose it was naive to think he’d keep me from Shelly all day, so instead of showing the disappointment that tugged at me, I adopted a chipper tone and started backing toward to the door. “Well, I guess I’ll see you.”
“Wait, you’re going?” He nearly tripped as he started after me without noticing the pothole in front of him.
I slowed. “You got your photo, I got my footage, and you clearly want to be alone with your brooding, so...” I took another backward step.
He dropped his head and nodded slightly. “Okay, that’s fair. I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to do this yet.” He flicked his gaze at his dad’s apartment before returning it to me.
I lifted and lowered my shoulders, saying softly, “Nobody knows how to do this.”
“But we still have to.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
He strolled toward me, purposefully, and my heart unexpectedly starting beating faster when I had to tilt my head up to meet his gaze.
“It was fun today. And honestly, I’m not sure what I would have done if you hadn’t come and gotten me. I get it if you have to go, but if you don’t...” One of his reddish-brown eyebrows lifted and my pulse rose a touch higher.
My mouth lifted to one side as he flushed. “I mean, I don’t have to go, not if you can make me a better offer.”
“Define better.”
“Not Shelly.”
Adam grinned. “Done.”
ADAM
I might be the world’s worst poker player.
My dad and Jeremy had gone to dinner, and Jolene and I were sitting on the carpet in my living room with an empty popcorn bowl between us and a growing pile of pretzels, candy, and whatever else we’d had on hand to gamble with. I’d taken her at her word when she said I had only to offer her something better than Shelly, which was how we ended up wandering around the neighborhood before coming back to my dad’s apartment as soon as he and Jeremy left.
It had been a surprisingly fun day even though she’d nearly cleaned me out an hour ago and had been eyeing my Philadelphia Flyers T-shirt ever since. When I lost yet another hand, she did her best evil villain laugh and gathered her winnings closer.
“You’re cheating.”
“Why do losers always say that?” She winked at me and started shuffling the next hand.
“No.” I pushed back and leaned my head against the seat of the sofa. “I’m done. I have nothing left to lose.”
Jolene sat back as well, spreading her hands on the carpet. “I wouldn’t say that.” When she eyed my shirt again, I burst out laughing.
“But it will look so much better on me,” she said.
“No argument there.” She’d looked good in everything I’d seen her wear so far, including the puffy coat she’d had on while we were outside. “I’m still done.”
She aimed her camera at me, a sight I was rapidly growing used to, considering it had barely left her hand all day.
“Come on. I really feel like I’m gonna lose this time.”
I laughed. “And a liar, too. No way. I’m not going to literally and figuratively lose my shirt playing poker. Leave me with a little dignity, will you?”
“Dignity is overrated. Plus...” She frowned and started pawing through her pile of loot. “I thought I won that in the last hand.” I kicked out at her with my sock-covered foot, and she retaliated by ditching her camera so that she could throw an Oreo at my head. I stretched up and caught it in my mouth.
We were both still laughing and throwing things at each other when Dad and Jeremy walked in. My laughter cut off immediately. Jolene, on the other hand, took a full thirty seconds to compose herself. Longer still, to follow my example and stand up. She kept glancing at me as if wondering how to gauge her reaction, like she’d never been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to and gotten yelled at the way I was about to be.
Dad glanced down at our cards and food before turning to the fridge and stowing take-out bags inside. Jeremy strode up to me. “You’re worthless, you know that?”
A muscle twitched in my cheek. “I’m not going to go eat with him so that he can feel better about walking out on Mom.”
Jeremy took another step toward me, forcing Jolene to back up in order to avoid him bumping into her. Her foot slipped on one of the cards, and she caught my arm to keep from falling. I was about to shove Jeremy back when she regained her balance and smiled.
“I’m good.” She eyed my brother. “I’m Jolene, by the way. You must be Jeremy.” She introduced herself without a trace of discomfort in her voice, as if my brother hadn’t just crowded her into almost falling. He swallowed and for a second looked like he was sorry. Then his expression hardened again.
“I’m just gonna...” Jolene pointed down and dropped cross-legged on the carpet, then gathered the cards and started shuffling them. “What do you say, Jeremy? Want me to deal you in?”
Jeremy and I turned equally incredulous looks at her.
“I’m assuming you’re familiar with Texas Hold’em. On a totally unrelated subject, how much would you say your watch is worth?”
Jeremy frowned hard at her, then turned to me. “Get her out of here.”
“Yeah, you are,” Jeremy said, leaning forward. “You piss and moan about a headache to get out of dinner again and then invite your girlfriend over?”
My face blazed red-hot and I clenched my fists.
“He wishes,” Jolene said to Jeremy, turning three cards faceup. “You’re not really helping his case.”
Jeremy was still trying to stare me down. The effect wasn’t as intimidating as he would have wanted, because I was taller.
As if he realized that he needed to get Jolene out of the apartment before his sons snapped, Dad came back into the living room. “Adam,” he said. “Are you going to introduce me?”
With great effort, I pulled my gaze from Jeremy to face him. For a moment, my fury for the way my brother had treated Jolene transferred to him. But when he looked at Jolene, Dad’s expression was the opposite of Jeremy’s. He even smiled at her. I nodded, then extended a hand to urge her to her feet. “This is Jolene. From next door. Jolene, this is my dad.”
“Jolene? You’re Shelly’s—”
“I am Shelly’s nothing,” she said, cutting him off and for the moment looking as uncomfortable as she should have been in this situation. “Shelly ‘dates’ my dad.” And yes, she added air quotes. Just like that, my anger started to slip away.
“Well, Jolene, it’s good to meet you. You’re welcome over anytime my son is here as long as I’m home, too, but Adam’s not allowed to have girls over alone.”
She looked like she wanted to laugh, but she had the good sense to meet my eye first. My mood had lifted, but my mouth didn’t so much as twitch.
“Oh, you’re serious?” Jolene asked.
Jeremy pointed at the door. “Yeah, so take the hint and get out.”
Dad didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Jeremy by the upper arm and hauled him to the kitchen, where I could hear harsh whispers flying back and forth.
“I was just leaving anyway,” Jolene called out, and then tapped her hand against mine. She mouthed sorry at me and dragged her lower lip to the side. When she bent down to grab her camera and the shoes she’d kicked off earlier, I came down, too.
Every Other Weekend Page 7