14 Hollow Road

by Jenn Bishop

  Even though there’s nothing there right now, it’s going to come together. Day by day, piece by piece.

  “Mom has the paint chips for whenever you’re ready,” Dad says.

  In addition to the paint chips, Mom has a bag full of bathroom tiles and wallpaper books. She’s got all this stuff piled up on the desk in their bedroom at the McLarens’ house. Kiersten didn’t write back when I texted her about seeing a movie tonight. If she’s got plans with her family this weekend, Mom and I can work on my bedroom.

  “Maybe this weekend,” I say.

  One of the construction workers walks over in his hard hat and tough brown leather work boots. He shakes Dad’s hand and then mine. “How are we doing?”

  I hold my hand up to my forehead to block the sun. “Pretty good.” He asks me this every time.

  “Any news about your dog?”

  I shake my head.

  “Well, I’ve been keeping my eyes open.” He gives me a closed-mouth smile and cracks open a can of soda. I wish he’d offer me one. “You know, my neighbor’s dog is going to have puppies in a few weeks. Labradoodles. They’re still looking for some buyers.” He eyes my dad. “You want me to give ’em your number?”

  Dad reaches into his pocket.

  “No thanks,” I say to the construction guy.

  “I know you folks are staying down the street, but the puppy probably won’t be ready to leave until September.”

  I shake my head. Does Dad even see me? Do his ears work?

  “Thanks for thinking of us.” Dad takes a business card from the construction guy. “We’d better scoot off.”

  Dad and I get back into the car. The black leather seats burn my legs when I sit down. Our old car never did that. “Can we put on the AC? I’m being burned alive.”

  “We’re just going down the street,” Dad says.

  But I ignore him and turn it all the way up. Hot air blasts out.

  “Maddie.” Dad raises his voice, reaching his hand out to turn the AC off. “What did I just say?”

  I roll down my window. “Why did you do it? Why’d you take his business card?”

  “I was being polite.” Dad backs the car out and heads down the hill toward the McLarens’ house.

  “But I don’t want a puppy.”

  “I heard you,” Dad says quietly.

  “I want Hank.” The cool air finally starts to take over, and I stop feeling like I’m slowly being cooked alive inside the car.

  “We all want Hank. By the end of the summer, though, we might be glad to have another option.”

  “What, you think he’s dead? If he’s dead, where is he? Where’s his tag?”

  “Honey…”

  “No. Be real.”

  “Madelyn, I am being real. Tornadoes are messy, messy things. We never found out who that guitar belonged to, remember?”

  “Hank’s not a guitar.”

  We pull into the McLarens’ driveway. Dad turns to me as he unbuckles his seat belt. “I don’t have the answers this time, Mads. I just don’t.”

  The following Saturday, I catch a movie with Kiersten and Gabby. In the dark theater, the only sound comes from Kiersten, in the seat next to me, sucking up the last of her Sprite through a straw.

  “Shhh.” I nudge her. There’s this eerie whistle in the movie, and I have the worst feeling something bad’s about to happen with those twins. The camera pans to a monster lurking in the corner.

  Kiersten shrieks, grabbing for my hand and squeezing it tight.

  I’m watching with my eyes wide open. The monster on the screen doesn’t even look slightly real. The CGI is totally obvious.

  I look around at the other people in the theater. There’s a guy that looks like Gregg’s brother, with his arm around some girl who’s probably his girlfriend. I can’t imagine going to a movie with a boy. Having his arm around me for a whole two hours.

  It still feels weird to think that Avery came into my bedroom the night of the storm. Even though for the past week he’s acted like it didn’t happen, I know it did. Cammie asked me to put that storm app on my phone. Sometimes, even when the weather’s perfectly fine, I open it and check the forecast. Like it’s proof, though I’m not sure what of.

  Maybe it’s only proof that Avery wanted to make sure my little brother wasn’t too freaked out.

  Maybe it wasn’t about me at all.

  —

  When the movie ends, Gabby’s dying for some fro-yo, so we head straight for the food court in the mall.

  I load my vanilla fro-yo up with gummy bears and mochi and wait in line with Gabby. Her cup is overflowing. I don’t know how she crammed everything in there—graham crackers, Oreos, sprinkles, granola, Reese’s peanut butter cups. “Man, you weren’t kidding,” I say.

  “Gotta enjoy my freedom.” Gabby laughs. “My dad’s kind of obsessed about what I eat.”

  “I feel you,” I say. “My mom’s had some healthy-food phases.”

  “I wish it was just a phase.” Gabby places her fro-yo on the scale for the cashier to weigh. “Ever since he read this article about what Olympic soccer players eat, he thinks I eat too much.”

  “But you’re not an Olympic soccer player. Don’t you run for, like, an hour every day? You can eat whatever you want.”

  “Yeah, you’d think? He’s obsessed with it, though. One of the reasons we moved here was because the high school’s soccer team is so good. My dad’s convinced it’ll get me a college scholarship and then after that…” She hands the cashier some money and takes her fro-yo off the scale.

  “The Olympics? For real?”

  Gabby shrugs. She swipes her spoon across the top of her concoction and pops it in her mouth.

  Kiersten steps into line behind me. Her cup is topped with strawberries, blueberries, and kiwis. It looks like it could be in an ad for fro-yo, it’s that perfect.

  “So, I thought we could talk about the pool party,” she says to me and Gabby. “I know we’ve been texting ideas and stuff, but we need to make some decisions. It’s only three weeks away now.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  Gabby’s still licking her spoon. “Okay.”

  We find a table in the food court—Kiersten suggests a quiet spot behind a big plant so we can focus—and once we’re sitting down, she whips out a small, sparkly planner. She shows us a map she drew of the rec center and the pool, complete with measurements. (For what, I’m not sure.)

  She hands me and Gabby checklists of everything we need to do between now and the day of the pool party.

  “I thought the rec center was doing most of the—”

  “We’ve got it covered.” Kiersten interrupts Gabby as she uncaps her pen. “I told them we’d take care of all of the details. And we can, right?”

  “But aren’t they kind of used to putting on parties there?” Gabby asks.

  I nod along with Gabby as I scan the list. “Forty-three things. For real? We have camp every day during the week. How are we ever going to get this done in time?”

  “This is nothing,” Kiersten says. “Do you know how many things are on the president’s to-do list each day? We can totally get this done.”

  “But…doesn’t the president have a whole staff of assistants and other people to delegate to?” I say.

  Kiersten notices that her fro-yo is melting and scoops a bunch into her mouth. There’s a bit of blueberry skin stuck to her tooth, but there’s no way I’m telling her right now. There’s no interrupting when Kiersten’s in mission mode.

  “Um, you’ve got a…” Gabby taps on her own tooth. I almost want to tell her, Watch out. When Kiersten’s like this, you just need to sit back and let her run the show.

  Kiersten swipes her tongue over her front tooth. “Is it gone?”

  Gabby leans in for a closer look and shakes her head.

  Kiersten glances over at the bathroom. “I’ll be right back. While I’m gone, can you look through the to-do list and start circling the things you’ll take care of?”
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br />   I can’t believe it. Have the rules changed, or are things different for Gabby? I want to enjoy it—that someone else can manage to calm Kiersten down, even if I can’t—but it’s not that easy.

  Once Kiersten’s out of sight, Gabby swaps the to-do list for her fro-yo.

  I pop in a few mouthfuls of my own yogurt, and a gummy bear gets stuck on my molar.

  “Man, Kiersten’s kind of intense about the party planning.”

  “You think?” I laugh.

  “Forty-three things on the to-do list? I bet even the Fourth of July Spectacular doesn’t have a to-do list this long.”

  “Definitely not.” The gummy bear finally dislodges.

  Gabby leans back in her chair and groans. “I’m stuffed. Do you want my last Oreo?”

  I reach over to grab it out of her cup.

  Across the food court, there are some boys our age, but I don’t recognize any of them. They’re not from Hitchcock. One of them has longer hair, and he keeps tucking it behind his ears, laughing while he talks to his friends. He’s cute. Definitely the cutest out of the four of them.

  I glance over the to-do list again. If I could just email Gregg this list, he’d probably take care of everything. He’s got the energy for it. (And a few thousand other ideas.)

  But…no. When I texted Kiersten to let her know he wanted to help with party planning, back before he started sending me ten billion emails a day, she said no way. She said boys always want to help, but they never follow through with anything.

  Kiersten’s probably right. If I actually emailed Gregg, he’d probably take it the wrong way and try to do all this party stuff together, just the two of us.

  Sometimes it’s better to leave Kiersten in charge.

  I spoon through the last of my fro-yo and look back up at those boys across the way. Gabby and I both watch them, without saying another word to each other.

  “You sure you’re okay hanging out by yourself?” Mom asks.

  The next Friday, I’m sitting on the couch downstairs with the TV muted. “You guys never have date night anymore. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  Mom picks some white cat fur off her navy-blue dress. She glances up the stairs. “Come on, Dan! If we don’t leave now, we’re not going to make our reservation.” She takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  Dad comes down the stairs, wearing a new dress shirt. Until they lost almost all their clothes in the tornado, I didn’t realize how used to my parents wearing the same clothes over and over again I was. “You know to give us a call if anything comes up,” he says.

  “You’re not supposed to answer your phone when you’re in a nice restaurant, remember?”

  Dad gives me a jokey salute. “Yes, yes, Cap’n Maddie.” His dress shoes tap, tap, tap on the hardwood floor. I unmute the television, my sign that it’s time for them to go.

  Miraculously, they take the hint. “Have fun, kiddo. Don’t blow up the microwave,” Dad says.

  “Peg showed me where she keeps the fire extinguisher. I’m all set.”

  One final wave from Dad, and then he closes the door behind him and Mom. I listen for the sound of the car starting up. Pulling back the front curtain, I peek out at them at the end of the long driveway.

  Finally!

  For the entire month we’ve been at the McLarens’ house, I haven’t had the place to myself for even one second. On the weekdays, me and Cammie and Avery are off at camps or at friends’ houses. And then, starting at five, the rest of the grown-ups slowly take over. My parents or Avery’s (sometimes Peg and Frank, too) crowd into the kitchen to make dinner, while Avery and Cammie and I duke it out in the living room for control of the big TV.

  On the weekends, it’s even worse. Frank will be puttering around on his projects in the garage or watching something on the Syfy channel with Avery or making Lego castles with Cammie. And Peg is always out in the garden or baking lemon–poppy seed muffins or trying to get me to watch Lifetime movies with her. Mom’s never been that big on TV—she’s more of a book person—but Peg loves her TV shows, and it’s sort of nice to hang out with someone her age. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it since Grandma died.

  Mom likes having all these extra eyes on Cammie, which, okay, I’ll admit works out pretty nice for me. But it also means I can never totally be by myself. Do the things I’d do if it were just me and Cammie, like when I used to babysit for him on the weekends or a school night.

  With Kiersten’s family down on the Cape this weekend, it’s just me. I guess I could’ve texted Gabby to see if she wanted to do something, but we’ve never done things without Kiersten. And anyway, it’s sort of nice to have a little bit of time just for me.

  Cammie is having a sleepover with Grammy in Rhode Island, Peg and Frank are out with friends on a boating trip, Avery’s parents are out for dinner like my parents, and Avery is at Gregg’s house.

  Until Mom and Dad get back from dinner, it’s me and the kitties. Wherever they’re hiding. Really, it’s just me.

  I turn the TV off and hook up my iPhone to the sound system. How loud does the volume get? Does it even matter? Are the cats going to meow in protest if I turn it up too loud?

  I doubt it.

  I keep twisting the volume knob. Ten, twenty, thirty. Probably thirty is loud enough.

  I grab the TV remote to use like a microphone and sing along with Taylor Swift, dancing around the living room. I do a little running slide in my socks on the hardwood floors. Shwwoooooop. It’s harder to come to a stop than I thought, and I end up perilously close to the china cabinet with all of Peg’s precious collectibles.

  Maybe I won’t be trying that again.

  So what if I don’t have Taylor’s singing voice? Nobody’s around to tell me that I’m not matching her note for note.

  My favorite song comes on next and I decide it’s not quite loud enough. I turn it up five more notches and hop up on the couch, flinging my hair from side to side as I sing along with Taylor about some boy who ruined everything.

  I hear a thump behind me. Probably one of the cats jumping down from the counter. Stella is a twenty-pounder, the total opposite of the graceful, prissy cats they show on cat food commercials. She’s bigger than some dogs I’ve met.

  “We…are never ever ever ever…getting back together!” I finish off the song with my eyes closed ’cause that’s the only way I can get close to hitting the right notes.

  But when I open my eyes, I see something move at the edge of my vision. Something way bigger than a cat.

  Avery stands in the doorway.

  I jump off the couch and turn down the music. My heart’s beating so loud in my chest I can hear it, and not just because it’s Avery. Because my Taylor Swift show was practically an exercise routine.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Um, a—”

  “Never mind. Don’t answer that question.” I realize I’m still holding the TV remote in my hand. The same TV remote I was using as a microphone not even a minute ago. I hold it against my leg as if it might meld to it and disappear.

  Nope. Still there.

  “So, um, how was Gregg’s?” The second the question’s out of my mouth, I decide I can’t hold my pseudo microphone in my hand one second longer. I try to flip the remote behind me so it’ll land on the couch, all casual-like.

  Instead, it clunks to the floor, batteries shooting out of it and rolling toward the coffee table.

  That’s when I laugh. So hard I’m closing my eyes. Avery’s laughing, too. And somehow that helps more than I thought it would. Like we both needed to clear the air.

  I walk over to pick up the batteries, still laughing a little. Avery collapses on the leather chair where Frank likes to sit and kicks off his sneakers.

  I pop the batteries back into the TV remote, set it on the coffee table, and sit on the couch. “So, Gregg’s?”

  Avery shrugs. “It was all right. I mean, it was no Taylor Swift dance party….”

 
; “Ha-ha.”

  He takes off his hat, wrapping his hands around it to curl the brim, and then sets it on the chair’s arm. And then he rubs at his eye. He’s not—no, I think he is. He’s crying.

  Something is wrong. I’ve known Avery since we were little and I’ve never seen him cry. Not ever.

  “Avery,” I say, unsure what to follow it up with. I reach my hand out for his arm. It’s supposed to be electric, but there’s no zap when I touch Avery’s skin. It’s just skin. No tougher or softer than mine. The same. “What’s going on?” I probably sound like my mom, but I don’t know what else to say.

  He picks at his thumb. I haven’t seen his hand so closely all summer, but his thumb is raw and red, like he’s been picking at it for a while. It’s rough, like the hands of the construction workers at our new house.

  “They don’t understand. None of my friends. They all think everything’s already gone back to normal. It’s not, you know?”

  I nod.

  “My parents think I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not an idiot.”

  Duh, I think. “What do you mean?”

  “We might have to move,” he says. “Like, leave town.”

  For a quick second, I get that feeling like when I looked at my house and saw only a pile of rubble. “For good?”

  “Nobody wants to help us out. I mean, you know they haven’t started any work on the house because there’s no money, right?”

  “Um…yeah.”

  He sniffs. “The insurance company, they’re a bunch of jerks. They don’t want to own up to it. My parents’ insurance doesn’t cover tornadoes. And they don’t have enough money to fix the house if the insurance doesn’t come through.”

  I swallow hard. “Where would you go?”

  “Dad said we could rent, but it would have to be some place closer to where he works. Some suburb of Springfield.”

  “You’d have to change schools?” I think about our new house. Sure, it’s not done yet, but it’ll be ready for the start of school, right? And it’ll be bigger. Maybe they could stay with us until they have enough money to fix their house.