Spoils

by Tammar Stein

  As I look at him now, a hot blush rises for no good reason.

  “Hi,” I say into the awkward silence. “I think we went to high school together a couple of years ago? I’m Leni.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

  Then why are you staring at me like a psycho?

  “Gavin, right?”

  He nods curtly.

  “Welcome back,” I say, vaguely referencing the ginormous elephant in the room.

  He nods again and stalks past me into class.

  Okaaaay. I guess he prefers that we all ignore the giant elephant. I’ll try to remember that for next time we don’t have a conversation.

  Once class resumes, I have a hard time keeping up with the teacher. Gavin sits at the end of the row about halfway back with an open laptop obscuring his lower face.

  It would be a lie to say I haven’t thought about him since he left school. People still talk about some of his more legendary pranks—no one has been able to match the statue of our school rival’s mascot, the Sand Crab, on a cafeteria tray in our school’s trophy case—but seeing him now, after two years, I realize that it wasn’t a mistake that half the school idolized him. There is something charismatic about him.

  I promptly renew my vow to stay away from him, shared class notwithstanding.

  Throughout my musings and the professor’s lecture, Gavin has been steadily typing. The professor glances at the seating chart and calls out, “Gavin Armand.” The typing stops. “What are some of the benefits of a chemical approach to ocean science?”

  I’m the only one who isn’t surprised when he answers clearly and intelligently.

  “The advantages are that measurements are reproducible and a small sample is representative of the whole.” He has a deep, even voice. Calm and thoughtful. At complete odds with his jerky-slacker attitude. “Chemical compounds are also markers of the past, meaning they can uncover biological or geological events while giving scientists a good look at current marine dynamics.”

  The professor blinks and then smiles like a woman who has found a Godiva chocolate in her bag of M&M’s. A couple of students share glances and roll their eyes, but I’m with the professor. Gavin’s brilliant. That’s a big part of the problem. Always was.

  At the end of class, she sets up a sign-up sheet.

  “You’ll each need a lab partner,” she says. “There will be three labs during this course and I reserved the lab for our class to use on Friday mornings. You’ll be graded on the lab reports that you turn in. This is an advanced-level class and I expect excellence from you all.”

  She looks at us, making eye contact.

  “Lab can provide you with hands-on learning that nothing in the classroom can provide. Lab is where it’s at, people. So make a commitment to it and see it through.” She gazes at us sternly; then apparently feeling she’s made her point, she nods. “Okay, you can go.”

  All the students gather their things and shuffle out, pausing by the sheet to sign up for a lab time and partner. I hustle over to the professor to discuss getting a note to give to my high school. I didn’t factor in for lab time and I’ll need a valid excuse for missing three Friday mornings of world-history class. By the time she scrawls a note and signs it, everyone has signed up and left. There’s only one name without a partner. It figures. With a heavy heart and sinking feeling of gloom, I sign up to be Gavin’s lab partner. Our first lab is tomorrow. It’s only three times, I tell myself. Keep your head down, don’t try to be friends and you’ll get through it.

  My heart speeds up as I approach the familiar storefront, the royal-blue-and-cream awning shading the front door with a cup of tea etched on the glass and Steeped written in dainty letters under it. I’ve been trying all day to think of what to say to my sister.

  “Natasha?” The fruity smell of tea greets me as I step into the cool, dark shop. An iced raspberry-mint tea would be awesome right now.

  “Tasha?” I call out again, heading straight to the back. “Do you need a break? I can stay until dinner.” Maybe she’s feeling better today. Maybe we’ll figure something out together. Maybe it isn’t as bad as I fear and she’s being hard on herself.

  There aren’t any customers at the shop and even the stereo is silent. It’s almost eerie.

  “Hello?” My heart beats faster. Again, absurd, out-of-proportion worry for Natasha suddenly takes over. I rush toward the back of the shop.

  “Hey, if it isn’t Little Sister.” Stepping out of the back room, John Parker walks up to the counter, smiling a broad greeting. I stop abruptly, my satchel bumping into me, before continuing slowly. It’s beyond weird for John to be at the shop so soon after Natasha’s trip. I’ve never really liked John and that was before he asked me out on a date a couple of months ago. This with him being at least ten years my senior. Then all those smiles and pats on the back that lingered too long made sense.

  I didn’t tell Natasha that he asked me out, since she’d probably fire him. As clichéd as it sounds, good help really is hard to find, and John has stuck with her for a year and a half, longer than anyone else. He’s a good enough assistant manager, and none of the customers have ever complained. But I hate being alone with him. There’s something creepy about his too-large hands; his big, even teeth; and the hair that seems snapped on, like a plastic piece on a LEGO figurine.

  “Where’s Natasha?”

  “Your sister needed a spa day,” he says, smirking, like, oh, you silly girls. “And I was glad to help out.”

  “That’s big of you,” I say. “Why is the music off?”

  He looks up at the speakers, as if to ask them why. “You have such wonderful attention to detail.” He beams, as if he’s paid me a tremendous compliment.

  I wait. He leans forward, elbows resting on the counter, smiling in anticipation, as if we’re exchanging witty retorts and the ball’s in my court.

  “How long did Natasha say she’d be gone?”

  His smile dims a bit. But gamely he continues lobbing his creepy version of charm my way. “Oh, I don’t know. Until the evening, at least.” This said in hearty tones of Good news!

  “Tell her to call me, okay?” I head for the door.

  “You’re welcome to stay here.”

  “Oh, thanks,” I say, with exaggerated gratitude. It’s my sister’s shop, asshole. “But I have a ton of homework. I’d hate to get detention.” I love reminding him how young I am. “Then I’d get grounded.” His smile dims further. “Lose TV privileges.”

  I should stop before he realizes I’m mocking him.

  “Don’t forget, tell Natasha to call me. It’s important.” Then before he can say anything else, I quickly leave the shop.

  Sweating in the humid heat, I’m uneasy as I mess with my bike lock. John’s presence at the store doesn’t make sense. Natasha would never miss a day of work after a long trip. She’s ignoring me, maybe avoiding me, and that doesn’t make sense either. There’s something about John that’s grosser than usual, which is saying a lot. In his own way, he’s as screwed up as Natasha.

  Chapter Seven

  My mom sits at the breakfast bar, perched on a stool with her back to me. I’m in no mood to recount how class went, and strangely reluctant to mention that Gavin is back in town. Seeing him again after all these years has stirred up some weird feelings. Like how hard I tried not to like him and how awkward it’s going to be having him as my lab partner. Glancing over my shoulder to make sure Mom didn’t notice me walk by, I have a clear shot to the staircase, but something about the way she’s sitting stops me.

  Her face is buried in her hands. There’s a mess of paperwork on the counter. Even from the doorway I can see they’re all bank statements and bills. The phone is next to her.

  “Mom?” Her shoulders stiffen at the sound of my voice but she doesn’t turn around. “You okay?” But damn it, it’s obvious she’s not. “Bad news, Mom?”

  She wipes her eyes roughly, shaking her head before turning to face me. Her hair is messy
and her blue eyes are red-rimmed and puffy.

  “No, no, sweetie. Everything’s fine. I’m surprised you’re not still at Steeped.” She touches her hair, smoothing it in place, a nervous habit of hers. Her bandaged thumb catches in her hair and she hisses in painful surprise. Then she grabs the paperwork, shoving it in a haphazard pile, covering it like it’s a stack of porn.

  I reach out to touch her good hand and she jumps with a guilty conscience.

  “You don’t have to pretend, Mom.”

  The phone rings and the sudden noise makes her eyes well with tears. It rings and rings and we both wait silently for the shrill intruder to stop.

  It stops after five rings.

  “Mom,” I say. “I can handle it. What’s going on?”

  There’s a mulish look on her face. My mother has never admitted we’re having financial difficulties. She likes everyone to think everything is perfect. And certainly, in front of me, the baby, she likes to be fully in charge, a soccer mom in her domain. But I’m not ten and it’s my trust fund that she’s counting on. If there were any other way, she wouldn’t let me spend a penny of it on her. Which makes it that much harder not to give it all to her. She deserves it. She deserves everything good I have to give her.

  “Okay, then, I’ll guess,” I say, sitting on the stool next to her. “The bank wants to foreclose on the house because we can’t pay the mortgage?”

  Her chin wobbles.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” I lay my hand over hers, the one that covers the paperwork pile. The bandaged one. “I’ve known for a while there are problems.”

  “It’s not a problem,” she says stubbornly. “There have been some misunderstandings.” She glares at the phone. “There have been…miscommunications. That’s the problem with a big corporation, there’s not a human being to talk to. Every time I call, someone else answers the phone and no one knows what the other person promised, or what agreements we made. One person agrees to something and then the next time I call, some idiot says there’s no record of what we agreed on. It’s so aggravating!” Then she catches herself, and tries to smile at me. It’s an unnatural smile and I feel pained about how oblivious I’ve been to her distress. Some of what I’m thinking must show on my face, and unlike me, my mom doesn’t miss it. She waves her free hand as if blowing away a bad smell. “None of it really matters. We’ll sort it all through. By next week, I’m sure we’ll see eye to eye.” She sneaks a quick glance at me to gauge my reaction.

  I squirm with guilt that I’m not being honest with her, that I’m letting her assume all these financial problems will disappear next week. Because maybe they won’t. More and more I think that “fixing it” is not fixing my parents’ debts.

  “Really,” I say noncommittally.

  She nods a bit uncertainly. I won’t look at her, suddenly furious. It’s your own fault, I think. You created this mess. You and Dad blew away more money than the GDP of some countries. Some of what I’m thinking must show on my face again. My mom presses her lips together, then forces her hand off the paperwork and makes a show of examining a small chip in her manicure. It’s fuchsia, very Florida lady-of-the-manor. She used to wear only clear nail polish, back before the win. I remember her saying it was both flattering and practical since you can never tell when it chips.

  “And of course this is coming at the absolutely worst time,” she says, in the false cheerful voice of the put-upon. “I’m still waiting to hear from the florist if the lilies came in like she promised they would. The caterer called to say they won’t be able to serve chilled berries in cream, your very favorite dish, because there was flooding in California that ruined their raspberry crop. Honestly! I told them they grow berries in Chile, what’s the big deal? Drive down to Costco and pick up some. But they insist no one is selling them. So now we have to figure out what to serve instead. What do you think of smoothies served in tiny shot glasses? That could be cute, right? Maybe with a little swirl of whipped cream on top? I saw some in a magazine and they were adorable.”

  I keep forgetting she’s planning a big party for my eighteenth birthday.

  “I thought we were getting the food from Natasha’s vendors,” I say in disbelief.

  “We’re getting the scones and finger sandwiches but I thought we needed a couple of signature dishes to jazz it up. A tea party is a nice idea, but we don’t want to look cheap.”

  “Mom, I don’t even want a party,” I say, for the millionth time. “I don’t need one.”

  Florists? Caterers? The only reason I agreed to a party was because it would be at Steeped and, I assumed, practically free. It’s not like I have a ton of friends to invite anyway.

  “Who’s coming?” I ask in sudden horror.

  “Not that many people, really. Although a lot of people haven’t RSVP’d, which means, of course, that they might be coming anyway.”

  “How many, though?”

  “Fifty?” she guesses.

  I close my eyes. Come on. I want to shake her. We’re broke!

  “You were born three weeks early,” my mom says suddenly. “It caught us completely by surprise. I couldn’t even believe I was having true labor. I kept thinking it was some cramps, nothing serious, until it got so intense that Dad called the neighbors, told them to come watch the kids and pushed me in the car.”

  I’ve heard this story before. I used to ask her to tell it to me all the time.

  “Thirty minutes after we arrived at the hospital, you were born. I barely made it to the room in the maternity ward and the whole time, as I’m trying to breathe through the labor pains, I say, ‘It can’t be the baby, it isn’t time yet!’ ” She laughs at the memory and looks at me with her eyes shining. “And there you were, tiny and perfect. The nurse wrapped you up and handed you to me. You had been screaming but as soon as you felt me, you stopped crying and looked up at me with your big, beautiful green eyes and I said, ‘Hi there,’ and Dad said, ‘Well, what do you know, it is the baby.’ We all laughed and laughed because there you were. You were so beautiful that all the nurses on the floor stopped by to take a look. My little miracle.” She swallows. “I never understood why you were born early. But now I do. Everything happens for a reason.” She draws a shaky breath. “We can’t wait three weeks, honey. The bank wants to start foreclosure procedures next week. Your birthday is coming right in the nick of time.”

  I suddenly unwish wanting her to flat-out ask for the money. It’s so much worse this way.

  “I don’t know what we’d do otherwise.” She wipes her eyes, leaving smears of black liner on her fingers.

  “Mom…,” I start.

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” she says. “None of this should concern you. I hate that you know any of it.”

  “But—”

  “I know, you’re old enough to handle it,” she finishes for me, misunderstanding what I was trying to say. “I know you are, sweetie.” She touches my face softly and squeezes my shoulder. “You’re so grown-up and amazing. You are. You are an incredible person but to me you’ll always be my little girl. My perfect little baby surprise. And this financial mess isn’t anything you should have to deal with.”

  “But, Mom,” I say. “What’s wrong with our old house? I liked it. I liked our neighbors. I liked the kids who lived on the corner. I liked our orange tree.”

  She smiles fondly.

  “It was a sweet little house. We had a lot of happy years there.”

  “Exactly.”

  But she doesn’t get it.

  “Once we get this mess fixed, I’ll have a big party,” she says, with that old spark of excitement. “We’ll spruce up the house a bit, you know, get some new furniture, freshen up the paint, and then I’ll invite the old block. What do you think? Something to look forward to, isn’t it?”

  “No, Mom! No more parties!” I want to bang my head against the wall. “We don’t need new furniture! We don’t need a big party! I don’t need a birthday party! We don’t have the money and I don’t have fi
fty friends! This party isn’t even for me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, clearly offended. “I thought you’d appreciate a party for your birthday. I’ve put a lot of time and work into it. And believe me, I kept the cost down. It would have been much more expensive if I hadn’t pinched every penny until it squeaked!”

  “We should move back to our old neighborhood,” I blurt out. “We never sold our old house, we could move back into it. We lived there just fine and we could do it again and everything will go back to the way it was.”

  She forces a titter and rolls her eyes.

  “Move back there? Honey, you don’t remember, but it’s not a great neighborhood. There were break-ins. The school zone is awful. There was a drug bust three houses down a couple of years ago. There’s no way we’d live there. Not to mention that your memory is playing tricks on you. If you saw our tiny little 3/2 now, you’d never be able to live there. Old terrazzo floors, a tiny, sandy yard full of fire ants and weeds.”

  “This isn’t about me, Mom,” I snap back. “You’re the one who’s too good to live there now.”

  She’s out of her seat, rising to her full height.

  “How dare you talk to me like that, young lady.” The fond, proud look is gone. “You are not too old to be grounded! When did you become such a spoiled, ungrateful child?”

  I stand up too, and we’re the same height. Our fists are clenched by our sides and both of us have our chins forward in a pugnacious tilt.

  “I am going to say it, because you need to hear it. How did we get here? You and Dad got us here!” I gesture at the bills but in my anger, I misjudge and knock the pile over. They scatter and flutter like birds set free. We both stare at the mess. Bills and statements are everywhere, on the floor, on the counter, on the chairs.

  “Oh, crap,” I say sadly.

  “It wasn’t our fault, honey,” my mom says, her anger deflated in the face of this mess, physical and metaphorical. “We had the worst luck. The investments…then the economy turned at the worst moment, no one could have known that would happen.…”