by Traci Finlay
I drop my pizza in my lap, and Nikka curses at him until we hear the door slam.
I’m really, really developing a distaste for the entire male species.
The day Ian dumped Selena, I wasted no time enlightening him on our six-year plan. “If you marry Chrissy, then we’ll be sisters,” I said as he pulled out of my school and merged his truck into the sluggish, slush-covered traffic. Most days, the ride home from school was all I got to see of him. Ian graduated last summer and was offered a full ride to the University of Michigan on a track scholarship, but he decided to wait a semester and work full-time to save enough money for an apartment off campus. He’d leave work to pick me up from school, then head over to a barbell gym to do a strength and conditioning program for two hours every night. By the time he got home, he’d shower and fall into bed, and I already missed my brother. He was leaving in two weeks, and I was dreading it.
“Chrissy likes you, Ian. And I really, really want you to marry her.”
Ian laughed. “You want me to marry your best friend? Chuck, you and Chrissy are thirteen. Why are you forcing me to be a pedophile?” He flipped on his windshield wipers.
I watched the icy snowflakes smear across the glass. “Chrissy’s fourteen. Besides, you have six whole years. Wait, is that too long? How about when she’s eighteen? Now you just have to wait like … four years. You’ll be out of college by then. It’ll be perfect.” I clapped and swirled my hand in a dramatic bow. “You’re welcome.”
He smirked and slapped my hand away. “I just broke up with a chick, and you’ve already married me off to a thirteen-year-old.”
“Fourteen. And Chrissy’s really pretty! Come on, you have to admit she’s beautiful.”
Ian gripped the steering wheel, sliding his hands to a perfect—and rare—ten-and-two. “Chrissy’s very beautiful, but she’s thirteen—fourteen, sorry! Same difference. Now stop trying to hook me up with your friends.”
I silently surrendered, reaching a mittened hand to clear the fog off my window to see the snow-covered land whizzing by. “Why did you and Selena break up? You guys were together a while.”
Ian smirked and rubbed his chin. “It wasn’t her, it was me,” he quoted. He looked at me, but my eyebrows were raised high enough to let him know I didn’t buy it.
“Chuck,” he said softly. “You know I’m leaving soon. I can’t worry about a girlfriend here in Cadillac once I’m in Ann Arbor. I’ll be focusing on school and track, and that’s gonna keep me pretty busy.”
“You couldn’t have waited until next week? Her birthday’s in three days.”
A grin spread across his face, both sheepish and malicious, and I was always floored at how he managed to do that. “I know. That’s why I broke up with her now.” He glanced back at my horrified face.
“You’re lying! Ian, that’s awful.”
“She’s too high-maintenance. She wanted all these expensive gifts, then she wanted to go to dinner, and she can’t just go to a pizza place, no. She’d already been talking about that steakhouse where I’ll easily drop a hundred bucks. I can’t afford that right now, not while I’m trying to save up every dime I can. I only have twelve days left to save money, and I’m not gonna spend it on a girlfriend I have no intention of staying with.”
Twelve days. I couldn’t even think about it. I tried swallowing back tears, but they were too fast and before I knew it, they were slipping down my cheeks. Ian grabbed my hand. “Chuck, don’t cry. It’s three hours away, we’ll still see each other. I’ll come home on weekends, okay? Every weekend.”
“It won’t be the same,” I whisper.
He used the back of his index finger to wipe the tears from my eyes. “In some ways it won’t, but in some ways it’ll be better. Maybe you can visit me some weekends. Then we won’t have to deal with Papster Q. McPoopsey and the Honorable Mamaw Mobley.”
I burst out laughing so hard, I couldn’t breathe. “Mom’s a judge? And what … exactly … does the Q stand for?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.
Ian thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Surprise me.”
I started giggling again, wiping the tears from my eyes. “Queen. Papster could pull off a pretty convincing Freddie Mercury with that mustache.”
Ian grinned and turned slowly into the driveway, the ice popping and cracking under his tires. “Yeah, but Freddie would never approve of KISS being at prom,” he said matter-of-factly as he flipped off the ignition.
“Oh, spare me.” I rolled my eyes and slid out of the truck, looking around the yard as we walked into the house. “Where are those two, anyway?”
“Who knows? Dad’s probably at a board meeting. And Mom’s at the courthouse, wielding her massive gavel.” He threw the screen door open.
I grabbed his arm, my attempt at hushing him combined with relinquished laughter resulting in a chanted sh-sh-sh-sh-sh. “She could still be inside,” I whispered. I held the screen door open while he fumbled with his keys, and I saw a slip of paper tucked in the frame of the screen. “Stupid solicitors,” I hissed as I snatched it, tossing it on the console table as we entered the house and removed our coats and shoes.
“Ugh, when is she gonna be home? I’m hungry, and I have to leave for the gym in twenty minutes,” Ian complained. I followed him to the kitchen and leaned on the counter, watching him slap together a turkey sandwich. He caught me staring. “You want one?”
I shook my head. “Hey E, skip the gym and let’s play Burken. We haven’t played in months. It’s running, isn’t that what your scholarship’s for?”
He scrunched up his face.
I slumped my shoulders. “Come on. We never play anymore.”
“I have to do this speed program, Chuck,” he said angrily as he slopped mayonnaise on the counter. I turned to grab a paper towel, and by the time I turned back, he was already heading toward the living room. I tossed it on the mayo blob and chased him down. “But when will we ever get the chance to play again?”
He’d already established himself on Razzle Dazzle and was feeling around for the remote control. “No, Chuck. Now shut up. I’ve been working all day and I have twenty minutes before I have to go bust my ass at the gym for two hours.” And he reinforced his resolution by burying his teeth in his sandwich.
“You suck!” I called as I marched to my room. I tossed myself on my bed, angry at myself for picking a fight with him when he’s leaving in twelve days.
Someone was shaking my shoulder. “Hmm?” I grunted.
“Wake up!” I heard my dad whisper. “Charlotte, wake up.”
I sat up and looked around the room, peeling a flashcard off my cheek—intermittent - characterized by a cycle of stopping and starting—and tossing it on my bed. I yawned and scratched my stomach. “What time is it?”
“It’s about ten minutes after six. Where are your mom and Ian?”
I sat up to my knees and squinted, trying to shake the sleep from my brain. “Ian should be coming home from the gym soon. And Mom hasn’t been home all day. She was gone when Ian brought me home from school.”
“Strange,” he said, his hands shoved into the pockets of his Dickies. “So what were you studying? Besides REM cycles?” He sat on the edge of my bed, and a stack of papers began sliding toward him.
I offered a courtesy laugh and grabbed the papers, stuffing them in my notebook. “I was studying vocab.”
“All right, let’s see what we have here.” He motioned for my list, and I scanned it before handing it to him. “Okay, zest.”
“Gusto. Vigor.”
“Good. How about … incontrovertible?”
“Um … not open to question … indisputable?” I heard a car pull in the driveway and the front door slam. “Someone’s home. I hope it’s Mom. I’m starving.”
“Me, too,” Dad said. “Uh, let’s hear … copious?”
“Copious…” I clicked my tongue and stared at my knees. “Oh! Abundant, large, or generous in extent.”
“Good!” he said a
s Ian burst into the room and dropped his gym bag on my floor.
“Hey, is Mom back?”
“No, I haven’t seen her. But I fell asleep,” I said, and Dad was shaking his head.
“Oh, well, hey Charles?”
“Huh?”
“The monster’s gonna getcha if you don’t run NOW!”
My eyes lit up. “Really? We’re playing now?”
His hand came up in a claw position.
“It’s freezing outside!” my dad said. “Ian, you must be exhausted. And Charlotte, your homework—”
But I was already slipping into my boots, sailing out the front door without zipping my coat.
I ran down the driveway and onto the street toward town. Slowing to a careful trek down the sidewalk, I remembered why we didn’t often play during the winter. I dodged patches of ice, wondering if Ian was following yet. Just before approaching the intersection, I turned a quick left into the parking lot of the post office, hoping to lose my footprints in the tire tracks on the snow. I slipped to the back of the building and scurried behind a cement inlet used as a dumpster.
Dropping myself in the corner, I realized how pissed my mom would be for playing in a dumpster. “Charlotte Amanda Stahl! What are you, a pig? Why would you purposely play in trash? Look at your pants! I’ll never get those stains out. You smell awful.”
I’d just gotten to the second main point of how only homeless children pick through trash when I heard footsteps crunching in the snow. How did he know where I was? It never ceased to amaze me.
“I see you, Little Spider.”
I could mouth that line along with him. Little Spider—the name he called me when I was still in the womb, because our mom read him Charlotte’s Web and promised him a baby sister with the same name. Before I could walk—before Burken—he’d play peek-a-boo with me. I see you, Little Spider. And I’d laugh and laugh at that term of endearment. Once I could walk, peek-a-boo matured to chase and hide-and-seek, and he’d still say it to make me squeal in delight. I see you, Little Spider. Even after chase and hide-and-seek conceived and bore the evolution of Burken, it stuck, and I hoped that he would never, ever stop saying that to me. No one in the world understood what I see you, Little Spider meant to me.
I waited my allotted number of seconds, hoping he’d second-guess himself. Maybe decide I really wasn’t hiding there. But Ian never second-guessed himself. Once he uttered that line, he knew exactly where I was. So I surrendered and took off running.
Round two.
He was close behind me, laughing and calling me a garbage monkey. I giggled as I weaved around the snow-capped shrubbery and back into the street. We dodged pedestrians and angered motorists as we jetted through town, and I finally was able to crawl through a hole in a fence and dart down an alley, leaving Ian having to scale the fence and fall behind.
My breaths exited in wispy puffs, and I stumbled upon the back door of a diner. Glancing back, I slipped inside and, ignoring the angry outbursts of the employees, dashed across the kitchen, through the dining area, and lingered in the lobby, sneaking peeks out the window and soaking up the warmth of the restaurant.
But I was sweating after the first verse and half the chorus of “My Heart Will Go On,” so I slipped out the front door and took off toward the beach, tearing through backyards and alleyways to avoid the openness of the street. I passed through a pavilion and around the Shay’s Locomotive historical landmark, soaring through trees en route to Lake Cadillac.
When I got to the parking lot of the beach—that at this time of year, was as dormant as a tomb—I snuck to the far corner where a retaining wall dropped from the elevation of the parking lot, separating it from the erosion of the beach. I slipped down the five-foot wall and nestled into the dead leaves and dirty snow, and waited.
“Charlotte Amanda Stahl! Of all places! You would have to roll around in a pile of rotten leaves! Couldn’t you have just sat at a picnic table like a normal human? Look at your coat!”
Soon the rubbery crunching sound of feet against packed snow erupted in my ears, and I tightened up. I had to pee. Oh boy, I had to pee.
The snow crunched above my head as Ian called, “I hear you, Little Spider.”
See turned to hear, once I was old enough to effectively hide from him. He wouldn’t dare tell a Little Spider that he saw her when he didn’t—that’d be a lie. So he’d listen for me, because I was too young to stay quiet. I’d giggle and fidget, and give away my hiding spot, and I hear you, Little Spider happened, and I loved it just as much.
I took off and sprinted farther into the woods as he high-tailed down the retaining wall and chased after me.
Round three.
I ran parallel to the water for a while, hearing his rush behind me. Because we were in a bare forest, it was taking me longer to lose him. No cars to hide behind, no people to blend into, no dark alleys to trick him into going down. I veered right toward Kenwood Heritage Park and got an idea. Killing two birds with one stone, as Papster would’ve said.
I trucked through the park—the vacant benches and swings resembling a display of ice sculptures—and out onto Mitchell Street, passing the Cadillac 5 and a toy store, where I’d indulge every Christmas and birthday. I continued eastbound toward the pretty Victorian houses I wished I lived in, and, skipping between the third and fourth houses, caused my first diversion. I snuck a couple of laps around one house, and then dove through a few more backyards until I arrived at Chrissy’s house.
Her light was on, so I tossed a rock at the window. The curtain rippled as Chrissy’s face appeared, then she separated them and slid the window open. “What are you doing?” she whispered, looking around. “Are you running from your brother?”
“Yeah. Throw me the rope. Hurry.”
Chrissy’s head floated off and reappeared with a knotted quilt, and she tossed one end out the window. “Here.”
I latched on and began shimmying up our alternative rope, the soles of my boots gripping faultily on the paneled siding. I flopped inside the room as Chrissy jerked the blanket up, tossed it behind the radiator to which it was fastened, and shut the window. “Brr, it’s cold out there.” She shivered in her fleece pajamas of pink hearts and purple clouds.
I surveyed her PJs. “Why are you in your pajamas?”
“Because I’m cold. And it’s seven-ten; that’s kinda normal. It’s not like it’s, like, two or something.”
I slapped my forehead. “It’s after seven already? Oh man, my mom’s gonna kill me. I gotta go.” I turned toward the window and stopped. “Oh! I remember why I came!”
Chrissy giggled and crossed her arms. “What’s important enough to interrupt a round of Burken?”
“My brother broke up with his girlfriend!” I said, my eyes twinkling like a true menace.
Chrissy rolled her eyes, pretending like she didn’t care, but I saw the excitement in her irises. “Okay, Charlotte, so? I still have a good six years before I ‘swoop in.’”
“Well, actually, I was thinking. You’re fourteen now, right? And legally, you can marry him at eighteen. You don’t have to wait six years. That was just … protocol.” I waved my hand around, using last week’s vocab word.
“Okay, Attorney Stahl. Now can you please leave before my bedroom becomes a bedlam?” She followed me to the window as the blanket fluttered out, and I began my descent.
“Bedlam. Noun. A place of uproar or confusion.”
Chrissy laughed as I jumped to the ground. “Good night, you freaky little tooth fairy.”
I waved and disappeared behind the house. With no sign of Ian, I held a smooth run to my favorite spot—one I didn’t use much because we rarely played Burken near Chrissy’s house. It was a hollow tree, perfect for my bony little body to curl up and hide in, even in a bulky winter coat. I crawled inside and waited. “Charlotte Amanda Stahl! Do you know how many insects and rodents could be living inside that tree? You could get bitten and get rabies! Let them poop on your new boots, see if I care
.”
“I know where you are, Little Spider,” Ian quoted, his voice inflecting rhythmically. I braced myself and closed my eyes.
“How do you know?” I recited, my inflection matching his.
It was my one line in the whole script—the last line to develop once I was older, when he still managed to find me without “seeing” me or “hearing” me, and I’d get frustrated with how he found me so quickly. “How do you know where I am?” I’d pout, and he always had an answer…
“Because I see inside your mind.” His hand burst in my tree hole and grasped my arm, dragging me out. I let out a delighted squeal as I scurried to my feet, Ian continually knocking me back down, tickling me and shoving snow up my shirt.
“Ian!” I yelped as the shocking cold stabbed at my toasty torso. “Ian, stop!” And I managed to remove my leg from his straddle and kick him off me. I stumbled past six or seven trees before he tackled me again, this time, both of us laughing so hard we were too weak to continue.
Soon we were trudging toward the house. I rode on his back as we recalled highlights of our game and cracked up. “Ian? Thank you. For playing with me. I know you’re tired after working all day and then working out so hard.”
“You’re welcome, Chuck. I knew you were upset earlier. I know you’re sad I’m leaving, so I wanted to get one last game in, one you could remember for a long time.”
I hugged his neck.
“Mom’s gonna kill us,” he mentioned.
I grimaced. “I know. I tore my coat.”
Ian tsked and shook his head as we entered the backyard and headed for the patio door. I slid off his back and put my mitten over the tear in my coat. “There, does this look obvious I’m covering up a hole?”
Ian looked at my awkward pose and rolled his eyes. “Yes. You should get grounded just for that awful attempt at hiding a hole.” Then he sniffed the air. “Why don’t I smell anything cooking?”
Our dad trucked into the kitchen. “Do you guys remember your mother saying anything this morning about leaving or going somewhere today?” he asked, patting a handkerchief on his forehead. I’d never seen him so frantic, not even during overtime of the varsity basketball state finals, the season he told the team he’d eat a goldfish if they won state.