by Jen Malone
Alex’s eyes widen and he gasps. “Oh, damn, Li. I didn’t even think—”
I wave him quiet. “Sorry, bad joke on my part.”
He closes his eyes briefly and my stomach twists. No! Please don’t let Alex start treating me with kid gloves now too. I never thought I’d say this, but I actually want him to give me crap.
Stacks of books appear behind him on-screen, making it pretty obvious he’s reached work. He hesitates, then says, “Hey, Lia? I gotta go, but hang in, okay?” Before I can respond, he adds, “Send me a pic of your green milk on Sunday.”
Ever since I can remember, my dad has colored our milk on Saint Patrick’s Day, and though the likelihood of Alex making a trip off campus to buy food dye just for one silly picture is probably pretty low, I answer, “Yeah, you too.”
The heaviness settles again as soon as I end the call. No thank you. I’ve had enough of this. I attempt to literally shake it away, and if anyone walked in right now they’d probably laugh their head off at my arms and legs flailing. But it actually works. A little.
“Not gonna catch me,” I tell the melancholy, sticking my tongue out as I tug on fuzzy socks and settle in for my date with the remote.
Words With Friends notification for AllHaiL(ia)TheChief:
QuitWithTheT-rex has just played ENDURE for 26 points
6
FOUR HOURS AND EIGHT MINUTES. THAT’S HOW LONG IT TAKES for the first knock on our door.
“Lia!” my mother calls up. “Come here a sec!”
As I descend the stairs, I’m met by the upturned faces of my former Brownie troop leader and her daughter, Annabel, who transferred to private school when we were in second grade—which may also be the last time I’ve seen either of them.
Mom’s voice is fake-bright. “Look who stopped by! Blast from the past, right?”
(My mother has never quite gotten over the time Miss Lesley told her, in response to Mom not being able to help us sell Girl Scout cookies after school because she had to work, “Oh, well, of course I understand if you have to put yourself first.”)
I step off the bottom step and am promptly swept into Miss Lesley’s arms and squeezed tight.
“You are simply the bravest thing, honey,” she whispers before releasing me and continuing, “When Annabel saw everyone—all the old crew from Haggerty, this is—posting about your plight online, we just had to jump into action.”
Annabel alternates between studying the floor and stealing glances at me. She’s ditched the braids for a crew cut that I covet, but that makes her look like even more of a stranger from the image of a toothy eight-year-old I carry in my head.
“Now, I’ve arranged a sign-up page on Meal Train and it’s filling fast, so this is only the first of many to come,” Miss Lesley says, her chin indicating the plastic-wrap-covered sheet pan in Annabel’s hands.
I blink, struggling to compose myself, when all I want to do is yell, But I’m not an invalid!
“This is really so sweet of you, Lesley,” my mother says, covering for me as I stand thunderstruck. “And Annabel, of course.”
Finally, I find my manners and echo, “Um, yeah. Yes. Thank you. So sweet.”
Which it is. Here’s the thing: it sounds incredibly bratty to complain about the fact that people care enough to rally around me and my family. I know that. I should be grateful to be surrounded by a sweet, generous community. But the words everyone posting and your plight run on a loop through my mind. Combined with the fact that two people I haven’t seen in ten years are in my front hall with lasagna—it’s all too unbelievable to be real.
How can this be my life?
It’s just . . .
What I really need right now—far more than any pan of pasta—is to keep focused on the positive. Not to forget, per se, because it’s not like that’s possible, but also not to have the constant reminders in my face. It might look like an innocent dish of pasta and cheese, but to me it’s a taunt. You’re weak, Amelia.
I am not weak. I’m the same me as ever.
Why can’t everyone just allow me that?
7
DING DONG.
I’m in my room late the next afternoon, gathering my supplies for work, when the doorbell rings.
Correction: when the broken doorbell rings.
It hasn’t functioned properly for the entire twelve years I’ve lived here, and fixing it would violate Babi’s Do Not Disturb rule. We embrace the chaos though. For my dad’s birthday a few years ago, I found him a mat that reads Doorbell Broken. Yell Ding Dong Really Loud and it won me the coveted Best Gift prize (basically just bragging rights, but those go a long way in my family).
My chest tightens. Another meal drop-off. More awkward porch shuffling and stumbled reheating instructions, amid sideways glances to assess how critically close to death I might look today.
I’m the only one home and I consider pretending I’m not here either, but when it sounds again, and then a third time, I give in to curiosity over who holds this doorbell magic.
I clomp down the steps, yelling, “Coming!” The loose spindle wobbles free and clatters to the floor.
Oddly enough, our doorbell does work . . . sometimes. Well, technically speaking, it works all the time, but only for exactly two people in the world, neither of whom are around at the moment. One is Michael, our former mailman, who used to give it a quick single jab when he wanted to let us know he was leaving a package on the porch. The other is Will, my brother’s best friend, which used to drive my mother up the wall because Will was such a constant in our house growing up that he was practically a Linehan. She would insist that his ringing the doorbell to come inside was as unnecessary as Alex or me doing it—not that he ever listened.
Michael went on disability last year, and while my brother and Will are still close, he hasn’t been over in ages. Even when he and Alex are both in town at the same time, they meet up to go out; they’re not hanging around here the way they did when we were little. Sure, Will stayed in Boston for college, but since my brother is currently a thousand miles away, it obviously couldn’t be—
I freeze in the opening, grateful for the heavy six-panel door propping me up.
“Will!”
He’s standing just off center of the word Yell on the doormat, and even with sunglasses obscuring his eyes, it takes only his familiar smile to render me fourteen again. That was the year I developed a totally clichéd—and unrequited—crush on the Boy Next Door (a few additional streets away geographically, but close enough).
I’m long over that now, but still . . . cringe, cringe, cringe.
Get it together, girl. You are a take no prisoners BAMF, so Will being on your doorstep doesn’t get to fluster you.
“I . . . uh . . . Hey! Alex isn’t here,” I manage. Not the greatest, but serviceable.
“I know. I am Alex.”
“Funny,” I say, beginning to recover now. “I don’t remember Alex being so—”
“Tall? Charming? Devastatingly handsome?”
I raise an eyebrow and say blandly, “Thai.”
He’s nonplussed as he casually slides his sunglasses up and props them on top of his head. His dark eyes, now that I can see them, flash amusement. “Well, I guess that does give me away, huh? Should’ve known better than to try to pull one over on you, Decker.”
I fight a groan over a nickname I haven’t heard in years. I may or may not have gone through a brief obsession with all things presidential when I was nine, and may or may not have begged Alex and Will to pretend to be my Secret Service detail, and, maybe, mandated they, at all times, call me by my designated code name: Decker. (So coined because I was hanging out at the hardware store the day I was trying to pick one and the first thing that caught my eye was a Black & Decker power drill.) The fact that Will has insisted on calling me this ever since is . . . I don’t even know.
When I don’t respond right away, Will jumps in with, “But the point is, I want you to consider me Alex.”
&
nbsp; I lean into the door frame, casually cool, even though my brain is whirling in overtime. The heck?
“What does that even mean?” I ask, more curiously than sarcastically.
His eyes soften. “Your brother called me last night. He’s pretty worked up about not being here for you right now.”
Will’s voice is matter-of-fact when he says this, but my stomach drops out as I’m hit with several competing emotions at once. I could tell our talk yesterday shook Alex, but getting Will involved? Telling him everything? Alex had no right. He might have meant well, but why oh why can’t anyone ask me what I need, instead of assuming they know what will help me?
Before I can fully process, Will continues. “As someone who is—was? is?—practically family, that makes me your practically brother, yes? I hope? So here I am. Reporting for big brother duty.”
Inside I’m a mess, but externally, I fall back on my reliable cover: snark. “If I’m supposed to consider you Alex, my actual brother, how can you also say you’re Will, my practically brother? Sorry, but that’s splitting metaphors.”
It’s possible I’m not within the technical definition of that term, but I’m not too fussed. Will rocks back on his heels, studying me with a serious expression on his face.
“I concede. Ten points to Gryffindor,” he finally says.
I narrow my eyes. “I’m a Slytherin.”
He laughs and I have to fight to keep my face neutral.
“You’ve grown up, Decker,” he says, with a note of appreciation in his voice.
Oh, so now you notice?
“It was incredibly nice of you to stop by, Will, but honestly I’m great and I’d really be happy if you could pass that message along to Alex—he doesn’t need to worry about me.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” I repeat to Will, when the first time garners no reaction. He tilts his head but still doesn’t reply. To cover the silence, I ramble on. “I know my parents will be really bummed they missed you. Stop back when they’re here sometime and say hi. But honestly, it was great to see you.”
I wait for him to answer with niceties of his own and step off my porch, but he doesn’t move. His still-present smile is bland, but grows into something that could maybe be described as slightly condescending, which emboldens me to be firmer, possibly even rude. “Well, I have to get to work soon, so . . . thanks again for coming by.”
I’m not inclined to slam the door in his face or anything, but when he still doesn’t move to leave or even say a word in reply, I begin to gently ease it closed, waving goodbye as I do.
The second it clicks shut, the doorbell rings.
Damn, traitorous doorbell.
I open the door with a partly exasperated but partly amused eye roll. “Yes, Will?”
“Sorry. No can do. I promised Alex an authentic check-in on his baby sister, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for at least the next few hours while I complete my formal assessment.”
I grind my teeth at the words baby sister and at his dismissal of my brush-off. Will’s every bit as cocky as I remember. That once fueled my crush, to be honest. But that was then and this is now, and he’s no longer under my skin.
“If only that was an option,” I say, “but it’s possible you didn’t hear me say I have to go to work.” I aim for sticky sweet and nail it.
“Oh, I heard you,” he says. “Where are we working these days?”
I raise an eyebrow. “I can’t speak for you, but I’m working at Lemondrop.”
Will’s eyes widen. “The bakery? Oh, damn, Decks, tell me they don’t let you near the ingredients.”
Another reason for me to be exasperated? This guy has years and years’ worth of ammunition on me. I know he’s referring to the time I mixed up the abbreviations in a recipe and added two tablespoons of vanilla to the chocolate chip cookie batter I was making, instead of two teaspoons. Who would imagine that something as amazing as vanilla could taste so absolutely disgusting in large quantities?
“Nooooo.” I huff out a breath that pretty clearly conveys my feelings on the matter, but it doesn’t do much except make the corners of his mouth twitch. “I do the chalkboards.”
“Come again?”
“The chalkboards. I hand letter their menu every week. You know, with chalk?”
“You mean like the signs you used to do for the hardware store?” Will asks, and I answer him with a nod. “They have you doing this on Saturday nights?”
I roll my eyes and face my phone’s display to him. “It’s barely five o’clock, not exactly primo partying hours. It’s a quiet time for the shop and they like to have the new designs in place for the start of a fresh week, so . . .”
Will recovers quickly. “Fair enough. I’m always up for new experiences. Are we walking or driving?”
I blink at him. “Oh. No, you can’t come with me.”
“Why not?” He leans against the railing and crosses one leg over the other. God he’s smug. He knows it too, but I bet he’d call it charm.
“Because! It’s my place of employment. It wouldn’t be . . . professional.”
Will examines a fingernail. “Is the bakery open to the public while you do this?”
“Yesssss,” I say, drawing out the word with suspicion.
“Okay then. I’ll just be another customer, stopping in for—” He pauses, considering. “Do they have macarons? Or is it macaroons? Which ones don’t have coconut?”
“Macarons.” I grind out the word.
“Right. So do they have those?”
I close my eyes briefly before nodding.
“Perfect!”
I try to stare him down, but his answering look is pure innocence as he checks a nonexistent watch on his wrist. “Can you roll in whenever, or are we in a time crunch here?”
It turns out grown-up Will is no less infuriating than the little boy who used to flick Pokémon cards at my head while I read books.
Whatever. I can handle one night of walks down memory lane if it ensures Alex will get a clean report and prevent any further attempts to “help” me.
I hide my defeated sigh. “Now is fine. I’ll just grab my stuff.”
“Sure. Hey, but not too long! I don’t want all the yellow macarons to be gone. Those are my favorite.”
I close the door on his laugh, but just as quickly yank it open again and march myself eye to eye with him. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t want to talk about, you know . . . it. At all. That would be a dealbreaker, so tell me right now if you can’t agree to my terms.”
There are so many people in my life I wish I could extract this same promise from, though I know if I ask them they’ll refuse to let me off the hook so easily. Especially Sibby.
But Will studies me quietly for a second, then holds three fingers up. “Scout’s honor, the topic’s off-limits.”
I squint at him suspiciously, though given the fact that I have an actual visual of Will and Alex in those stiff blue shirts with the orange neckties, clutching their pinewood derby cars, I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Returning inside, I take my time climbing the steps, dawdling while I set the spindle back into place. It takes me all of three seconds to finish collecting my work supplies, considering they only consist of an eighteen-pack of liquid chalk markers and my iPad, but I linger for several more minutes, in part to keep from seeming too eager and also to calm my swirling thoughts. I’m usually happy to roll with surprises, but this is a lot to spring on a girl already trying to regain her footing after the events of the last couple weeks.
Maybe I should find it sweet that Will cares enough about Alex to do him the favor of checking in on his kid sister, but it’s also humiliating as hell. I don’t want to be anyone’s obligation, and I’m sure he has plenty of other ways he’d rather be spending a Saturday night. Why couldn’t he have just taken me at my word that I’m really and truly fine?
Or at least that I will be, once this health crisis stuff is in the rearview mirror.
I collect a deep breath and channel my frustration into the fuel I’ll need to prove to Will that I’m handling all this perfectly. With a determined bounce, I take the steps two at a time, lightly enough that all staircase components remain in place. I flash Will a smile to show him just what a good sport I’m about to be as I pull the door closed behind me and zip up my coat. “Ready when you are!”
He slides his sunglasses back into place and sweeps his arm toward the steps. “After you.”
8
“SO ALEX TOLD ME YOU’RE HEADED TO AMHERST,” WILL SAYS AS we begin walking. “That’s impressive. Do you know what you want to major in yet?” Then he groans. “Sorry, that’s the generic icebreaker for every college student on Earth. I hate myself a little right now.”
“That’s okay, I’m not jaded by it yet, so it’s all good. To answer your question: everything!”
“Ah, so you’ll be on the twenty-five-year plan, then?”
I’m grateful Will is abiding by his promise and talking to me about my future as if my BA doesn’t exist. I step around a stray patch of ice on the sidewalk and say, “Whenever I look at the course catalog online, I want to sign up for all of them. Everything sounds interesting. That’s how I landed on Amherst, because they have a liberal arts focus, so I can sample a little bit here and a little bit there.”
“You’re making ‘undecided’ sound strangely appealing.”
I wrinkle my nose. “‘Undecided’ sounds terrible; I hate uncertainty. This doesn’t feel like drifting aimlessly to me though, because I have a solid plan. It just happens to be a plan to try everything, like a big ol’ college buffet. One helping of Anthropology of Food, one side of Introduction to Oceanography, one spoonful of History of Opera . . . I think it’s more like ‘overdecided.’”
I fill him in on some of the classes I’ve already bookmarked as we cover the blocks between my house and the bakery.