Vibrizzio (The Big V #1)

by Nicki Elson

  * * *

  It was Christmas Eve. The cookies were baked, and Jessica and the kids had set a plate out for Santa. Now she and Sam were coaxing their three children plus Sam’s nine-year-old son, Jason, to bed while Penny put together the egg casserole for the morning’s brunch. Lyssa’s dad sat in his favorite chair watching TV, and Doug and Karin waited for Lyssa in the enclosed gazebo off the patio. Lyssa just had to make a quick pit stop in her designated guest room to grab something.

  At the bottom of her bag, in a zipped compartment right behind a small, gift-wrapped package from Hayden, she found what she was looking for. Shoving it into her coat pocket, she headed to the back of the house and slipped out the sliding glass door. As she entered the gazebo, she found Doug adjusting the space heater while Karin sat on the bench that circled the interior perimeter. This was Lyssa’s favorite part of the week—her powwows with her big brother.

  “Please tell me you’re doing an every-other-year thing for Thanksgiving and will be with me at Jess’s next year,” Lyssa whined when Karin handed her a cold beer.

  “We are,” Karin said. “But, um, we’re doing that for Christmas too, which means … ”

  “No! You can’t leave me alone with them for that long.”

  “Sorry, little one,” Doug said.

  “Aww, Lyss,” his wife said. “They’re not that bad.”

  Lyssa looked at her sister-in-law and shook her head. “You didn’t spend almost three hours at the back of the Jessmobile today—remind me to make the entire drive down by myself next year. I’m sure Doug must’ve filled you in on my conversation with Mumsy during tea at the Drake.”

  Karin laughed.

  “Uh huh, see? This is what drives me to seek out the good stuff.” Lyssa pulled a baggie out of her pocket and let it unroll, revealing the marijuana Carla had procured for her.

  Doug laughed. “No way—you were serious?”

  “Of course I was. The Jack Daniels left me too hungover last year, so I figured this was the more practical route.” Pulling out rolling papers and laying them on the bench, she said, “Now we’ve got to see if I remember how this works.” Licking her fingertips, she went to work, and she smiled with pride at a not-half-bad joint when she finished. But when she held it out to Doug, the quick exchange of furtive glances between her brother and his wife vanquished her grin.

  “Sorry again, Sis. I can’t partake.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You are sworn to maximum secrecy,” Karin said.

  “What? Why?” Lyssa repeated, her voice smaller.

  Karin inhaled and locked eyes with Doug. Then he shifted his gaze to his sister and said, “We can’t mess around with that stuff because we’re trying to have a baby.”

  Lyssa’s mouth opened a little wider, and she felt her face freeze, caught in conflicting emotions. She was excited for her brother and his wife and didn’t want to say or do anything that would dampen the moment, but this news totally sucked for her personally. She’d figured she’d at least have two or three years before those two started down the path to parenthood. If all the equipment was working right, this could very well be their last ever gazebo night—and no one was even going to get stoned with her to commemorate the occasion.

  Her flicking irises settled on her brother’s face. He watched her cautiously, but she saw in the twitch of his lips that a smile paced restlessly beneath his surface, just waiting for a positive sign from her. What else could she do? She burst into a smile and got up to kiss and hug them both.

  “But really, don’t say anything to anyone—we don’t want to jinx it,” Karin said as they all settled back into their seats.

  “Not a problem. Just promise me you won’t make me act amazed every time it can correctly point to its nose. And could you please, please, please get it to master its L’s at an early age? I’m so over Aunt Wyssa.” Doug chuckled, but Karin crinkled her eyes uncertainly. “But that’s all for the future. What about now? Tell me about life in Michigan.”

  They went on to update each other, slipping in little jabs at their middle sister wherever possible, and Lyssa felt herself truly relax for the first time since leaving Chicago that morning. When she’d fully unwound, she lifted the joint and tilted her head toward Karin. “I know what they say about pot and sperm count, so I get why he’s out. But what about you? You’re not pregnant yet, so what would be the harm in taking one teensy puff?”

  Karin shook her head and said through the beginnings of a yawn, “Not taking any chances.” She finished the yawn and continued, “I’m sorry, but I’m so tired from the drive. Would it be terrible if I went to bed already?”

  “I’ll walk you in.” Doug stood and held his hands out to help his wife up.

  “You coming back?” Lyssa asked him.

  “Eh, I’m kinda beat too,” he said. “Getting old sucks.”

  “Apparently so,” Lyssa grumbled, leaning back against the gazebo wall as they departed. She rolled the joint in her fingers for a few moments, contemplating lighting it, but it’d lost its charm. It was no fun being a renegade by herself. She tossed the contraband into the baggie and returned it to her pocket, making her way back into the sprawling, one-story house where she went to the kitchen to give her mom a goodnight kiss on the cheek. On her way through the family room, she mumbled a goodnight to her dad, who may or may not have heard her.

  During the Christmas holidays, Jessica and her family took over the basement, and Doug and Lyssa were given rooms at the end of a hall. Their bedrooms had a full bathroom between them, so it was like having their own wing. When she stashed the pot in the zippered compartment at the bottom of her suitcase, her fingers bumped against the package from Hayden. He’d slipped it to her the last time they were in the office together, telling her it was for whenever she needed “a little pick-me-up.”

  “I need,” she said aloud to herself, at first flicking open only a corner of the wrapping paper and then tearing into it. Her mouth quirked into a smile when she recognized the familiar Duracell black and gold, but she had to throw her hand to her mouth to muffle the unstoppable guffaw that burst forth when she peeled away the rest of the paper. It was a battery charger, complete with four rechargeable batteries—pre-charged and ready to use, according to the package. Her shoulders shook for a solid minute. Even from hundreds of miles away, he could make her laugh. And for that night, the laugh was all the pick-me-up she needed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As usual, Christmas day was a blur of scrambling to get everyone bathed and dressed early enough to commandeer a vacant pew at church, then rushing to put brunch on the table with everything at the right temperature, followed by a frenzy of ripping into wrappings, building complex Lego sets, and figuring out new electronics until it was time for ham sandwiches, eggnog, and cookies, and eventually, Christmas movies in the dark with the flicker and scent of Penny Bates’s wintergreen candles coaxing everyone into groggy serenity. For Lyssa, this single day every year was what made dealing with all of the Bates family’s eccentricities and slights worth it.

  The next day, after sleeping in, the whole gang gathered and went into town to browse a few boutiques and have lunch. While finishing their sandwiches, Penny and Jessica started talking about the antiques mall right outside of town. Lyssa had been there on a previous visit, and in her honest opinion, it was a bunch of old crap in a warehouse. She swore she’d never go again unless she brought a flask filled with flavored vodka so she could make a drinking game out of every time her mother or sister said charming, vintage, or character.

  “I’d love to see it,” Karin said before Lyssa thought to warn the newbie.

  Jessica’s face brightened, and she turned to Sam, who said, “Hun, you know I only committed to shopping for a couple of hours, and I’ve fulfilled my quota.”

  “Perfect. Then you can take the kids back to the house with you.”

  “But I was planning to watch the game with your dad and brother.” Grandma and Grandpa’s house
wasn’t as kid-friendly as Casa Jessica and required some level of adult supervision at all moments.

  Jessica gave him the look, and Sam pressed his lips together. Lyssa guessed he was debating whether or not this was a worthy battle.

  “Actually, I’d kind of like to go see some antiques.”

  Lyssa’s neck made a snapping noise as she whipped her head around to verify that it was Doug who’d said this. It was. Her attention shifted back to Sam, who stared at Doug, the pain of betrayal crinkling the skin around Sam’s eyes. With Doug intending to tag along on the excursion, would Sam also forego the game to watch the kids while his wife antiqued?

  No. Lyssa wasn’t going to let him give in—not when there was a way to save herself in the process of rescuing him. “I’m about shopped out too,” she said. “Why don’t I go back with Dad and Sam to watch the kids till you ladies get back?” She flicked her eyes toward Doug on the word ladies. Moving her attention to Sarah in the highchair, she pointed, “But I’m not taking that one.”

  “Works for me,” Jessica said. “As long as we can take the Tahoe in case we buy something bulky.”

  Everyone agreed to the plan, so they moved Gabby’s car seat to Lyssa’s parents’ hybrid hatchback. Sam offered Lyssa the passenger seat, but she refused, saying he needed the leg room. Too late, she discovered that his four-year-old’s contraption took up a good chunk of the back seat, leaving only enough room for Ben and Jason to nestle on either side.

  Lyssa stared at the packed car and murmured, “I literally don’t fit in.”

  She saw her dad’s eyes lock on her through the rearview mirror, and he grunted, opening his door and moving to the back of the car, where he opened the hatch. He gestured with one hand for Lyssa to climb in. “Let’s go. Kickoff’s in twenty minutes.”

  Back at the house, Sam and Mr. Bates settled in front of the TV with a cooler of beer and a huge bowl of popcorn while Lyssa and the kids played a game of Apples to Apples in the kitchen. After Jason won, Lyssa told them to get their coats on, and then she snatched a bottle from the guys’ cooler before leading her petite posse out to the gazebo. The kids called it “the fort” and went immediately to the basket of outdoor toys, pulling out helmets and a bouncing ball. Lyssa noticed that a faux steering wheel had been mounted to the inside paneling at some point since Christmas Eve. After securing his Vikings helmet, Ben went to it and began piloting the fort. The seven-year-old’s head was just high enough to see out the thermoplastic window in front of him.

  “Where are you taking us?” Lyssa asked.

  “Nebular galaxy.”

  “Is it scary?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Will it take long to get there?”

  “Not really.”

  She looked to Jason, who was helping his half sister attach several flag football belts around her waist. Leave it to Gabby to turn sporting equipment into a hula skirt. “I got you guys something,” Lyssa announced.

  “Really?” Gabby moved to Lyssa’s knees at super-human speed.

  “Yep. Come over here fellas; have a seat.”

  They took seats along the bench beside her as she produced a pack of candy cigarettes. If her brother was going to abandon her—and after what he’d pulled the night before and earlier that day, clearly he was—it was time to begin the indoctrination of the next generation. Pulling a cylindrically shaped piece of gum from the box and holding it between two fingers, she said, “This, my diminutive darlings, is a gateway candy.”

  “Looks like a cigarette,” Jason said.

  “Yep. Looks like cigarette, tastes like gum. But here’s the best part.” She clamped it between her lips and blew, sending a sugary puff into the air.

  “Wow,” Gabby murmured.

  Lyssa passed a piece of gum to each of the kids, and soon simulated smoke billowed around the gazebo. The only adult in the structure leaned back onto the wall, holding her cigarette like a real one, occasionally bringing it to her mouth and taking a faux drag. The experience was made all the sweeter by picturing what her older sister’s face would look like if she could see her darlings now. It was difficult to tell whether Jess would be more mortified by her kids pretending to smoke or their proximity to sugar—she was a tyrant about not letting the kids have more than one tiny piece of candy or dessert a day.

  “Aw,” Gabby whined. “Mine’s all out.” Her pudgy cheeks ballooned around her cigarette as she blew, but it was dried up.

  “That’s okay,” Lyssa told her. “Plenty more where that came from.” She handed her another. “Now you can unwrap the first one and chew it.” The boys unwrapped theirs too and held their hands out for another. “Excellent. I should have you up to a pack a day by tomorrow, but I think it’d be best if we didn’t tell your mom about this, okay?”

  Gabby nodded. “My mom told Grandma that you can’t have kids because you’re too fun.”

  “No,” Ben said. “She said it’s because Aunt Lyssa is too busy having fun instead of getting serious about her life.”

  “Is it true?” Gabby asked, tilting her head and examining Lyssa’s face.

  “People can have fun and be serious too,” Lyssa said.

  “Then why can’t you have kids?” the little girl pursued.

  Lyssa considered explaining that if she ever did manage to reproduce with the love of her life, her children would probably turn out something like the battery-operated dolly Sarah had unwrapped the day before.

  “She needs a husband first,” Jason said. “Like my mom. She had to wait until she got another husband before having another baby.”

  “Usually there’s a husband first, but there doesn’t have to be,” said Ben.

  Lyssa smiled at how much of an adult her nephew sounded like whenever he strung more than two or three words together.

  “How can they do that?” Gabby asked.

  “You’re too young to understand,” Ben told her.

  “And how exactly do you know any of this stuff? Did your mom tell you?” Lyssa asked, finding it difficult to believe Jessica would approach the talk with a seven-year-old.

  “No. Joey R at school did.”

  Gabby turned back to Lyssa. “Why don’t you do the thing Joey R said and have a baby without a husband?”

  Lyssa took a sip of her beer, buying a moment to ponder how to answer her niece’s question. “Having a baby is a big responsibility. From what I understand, it can be pretty expensive, which is difficult for a single mom or dad to manage all alone, so for now I don’t plan on having any kids unless I ever get married.”

  “When will you get married?” Gabby asked.

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath, sugar plum. Marriage might not be in your auntie Lyssa’s future.”

  The corners of Gabby’s mouth drooped. “Don’t you want to be happy?”

  “I am happy. Look.” Lyssa stretched her mouth into a grin until her cheeks hurt, but her niece narrowed her eyes skeptically, so she turned to the boys. “Ben, Jason, don’t I look happy? And not just when I’m doing this crazy clown smile.”

  The boys had lost interest in the conversation and had moved back to the toy bin, puffing on their cigarettes as they rifled through it.

  “Fellas?” Lyssa said, realizing she might be a touch too anxious for their answer.

  Ben clenched his gum between his teeth as he pulled out a football. “Tell you what. When I’m older, if nobody else wants to, I’ll marry ya.” Typical male—he’d only been half listening. What did the opinion of a bunch of kids matter anyway? Especially kids being suckled on her sister’s narrow view of the world.

  “A very kind and generous offer, Benny,” Lyssa said. “But I’m pretty sure that’d be illegal in this country.” Before she finished saying it, a car engine purred up the driveway at the side of the house.

  The return of the antiquing crew didn’t register with Lyssa until she heard her sister’s boots crunching along the path to the patio. “There’re my babies!” Jessica called as soon as she came into view.


  Lyssa shoved her hand forward, wiggling her fingers. “The gum. The gum!” she hissed. “Give it to me quick.” All three kids dropped their wrapped ciggies into her hand, and then Gabby leaned over and let the wad she’d been chewing plop down to join them. The boys followed suit. Lyssa didn’t have a chance to as much as shudder before the gazebo door opened. She clenched her hand into a tight fist and grimaced as the gum squished against her fingers.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Jessica asked, giving her a sour look.

  “Nothing. How was the market?”

  Gabby ran over to hug her mom’s legs, and Jessica ran her fingers through her daughter’s locks as she answered, “I don’t recommend you ever try it with Doug. He was bored after about two minutes and kept whining to leave.”

  Lyssa tried to keep her victorious smile internal. He wasn’t totally gone yet.

  “But on the way back we stopped at the grocery store and picked up a half-price gingerbread house—naked! So we get to decorate it!”

  “All right!” the kids cheered.

  Lyssa smiled. It was nice to see her sister so uncharacteristically playful.

  “Your grandma and I decided on the way back that we’d have one more night of Christmas. So after supper, she’s going to make hot cocoa, and we’ll decorate the gingerbread house and watch Elf. Come, let’s get washed up, and then you can help set the table—with the Christmas plates again.”

  Another round of cheers ensued as the kids filed out of the gazebo and into the house, led by Jessica. Lyssa lagged a few yards behind the parade. She was the rebel in the family, the cynic, the anti-Stepford daughter—and she had the saliva-encrusted blob in her fist to prove it—but she’d be damned if the thought of hot chocolate, gingerbread houses, and Bob Newhart as Papa Elf didn’t make her all warm and fuzzy inside.