The Story of Us

by Deb Caletti

  Ben opened his mouth dramatically, stretched his arms. “Aww.” He yawned. “Aww, awwww!” He yawned and yawned again, and I knew what he was trying to do. It was something I discovered one day. I don’t know why I thought of it, but it occurred to me to wonder if maybe you could make dogs yawn, same as you do people. So I tried it. I was on the old leather couch in our living room, and Jupiter was on the chair she wasn’t supposed to be on but was always on, and she was watching me while pretending to sleep. I saw her peeking. She always kept one eye on us; that was her job. I knelt up close to her. I yawned, and then she did too. I was so happy. I was thrilled. It was like a scientific discovery. I went and got Ben, and we both tried it again to make sure it wasn’t a coincidence. It took some doing, but sure enough she yawned again, though maybe she was just bored with us people and our weird games. Sometimes my humans are very puzzling, she seemed to say. Still, the yawning discovery felt important. It said something significant about animals and humans, though who knew what.

  I lifted the foil from the plates on the table. Sausages. There they were. Pancakes. I sat in a chair, which was still warm from someone’s recently vacated butt. I hate that. My crankiness, there and then not there, was back again. More than just back—it was the nun on the Sound of Music hilltop, singing with cruel volume, its little arms flung out wide. It was childish, I know, but dog yawning was our thing.

  “They’re not going to do it,” Amy said. She sat on Dan’s knee, arms around his neck. She looked miraculously cured of her illness from the night before.

  “Tell ’em, Cricket. They don’t believe me,” Ben said.

  “Cruiser does all kinds of tricks,” Amy said.

  “He rules the total house,” Hailey said. Her lip was curled up again in disgust. It was possible this was a permanent condition, same as Mom’s tipped-up nose, say, or Janssen’s eyes that always looked a little sleepy.

  “Jupiter doesn’t do tricks,” I said. Jupiter was an independent thinker. We’d tried to teach her to shake a few times, but she just stared at us in firm refusal, as if she simply preferred not to. Throw a ball for her, and she’d look at you as if to say, Plan on getting that yourself. I respected this. Still, I don’t know why I was being such a bitch, engaging in some stupid dog contest. Cruiser was a great guy with sweet folded-down ears, even if he was a little wild. If we did get to choose family, as Ben said, I’d probably even pick him.

  Right then, though, Jupiter had had enough of sitting beside that tall dog. She walked away, came over to me, and put her front paws up on my legs. I petted her soft black head. Neither of them had yawned on cue, and I was glad. Maybe sometimes you just feel like everything can be taken from you all at once.

  “They’ll never believe me now about the yawning. Tell ’em, Crick,” Ben said.

  “It’s true,” I said. Jupiter sat upright by my chair, showing me her straightest self for pancake bits. Her eyes followed every move of my fork. I gave her a bit of sausage, and she trotted off to eat it on the rug.

  “I’m taking you at your word,” Dan said.

  “Are we just going to sit around all day?” Hailey said.

  “I thought we could all go for a beach walk,” Dan said. “Something like that? What would you guys like?” He stood, displacing Amy, who put an arm around his waist. She reminded me of those spider monkey babies. The ones who clung to their mothers as they swung from tree to tree.

  “Morning, all!” Aunt Bailey said. She was wearing a yellow Windbreaker with her jeans and tennis shoes.

  Gram appeared beside her a moment later. “Moped rental in town, if anyone wants to join us.” She was wearing a yellow Windbreaker too.

  “Twins,” I said to them.

  “I bought mine first,” Gram said. “She always has to copy me.”

  “Who ran down to Ross and bought my very same rain boots?” Aunt Bailey said.

  “Do we have to wear a yellow coat if we want to go?” Dan Jax asked.

  “Comedians,” Gram said. “A bunch of comedians.” Aunt Bailey held her purse tight to her side as if anticipating muggers.

  “Humiliating tourist activity on two wheels—” Ben said.

  “A couple of old broads leading the way,” Gram said.

  “I’m in,” Ben said. “How fast those things go? Sixty, seventy?”

  “I’m not exactly in the mood to break my arm,” Hailey said.

  There was the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Grandpa Shine appeared with a big smile, wearing his cowboy hat, and with his golf shoes hooked over his fingers. George was beside him, looking crisp and handsome in khaki shorts and a polo shirt. Ben looked at me, and I looked at him and shook my head. Ben shrugged. As close as he’d get to admitting a mistake.

  “Found a nine-hole in Anacortes. Want to join us, Dan?”

  “Can’t leave us alone,” Amy said.

  “I am not riding a moped,” Hailey said.

  “Come on, guys,” Dan said, shooting a flare of impatience.

  “Dad …,” Hailey whined.

  Dan weighed his options, which didn’t take long. I guess there weren’t many. “Thanks, Art. But I guess we’re going to find something to do here.” Dan’s face was tight. “I’m a terrible golfer anyway.”

  “Munchkin? Hit a few balls?”

  “Mopeds,” I said. I’d suddenly decided. Embarrassing myself on one of those things with Ben and two old ladies dressed like daffodils sounded better than my other options.

  “Better put some fuel in the fire, then, kiddo,” Gram said. “We got a full day’s rental and want our money’s worth.”

  “You ladies know how to get around,” Grandpa Shine said.

  “You’re one to talk,” Gram said.

  “I can give you lessons, if you would like it,” George said to Dan. It was the first time we’d heard him speak a full sentence, though I couldn’t blame him for feeling shy around all of us.

  “This guy’s a player,” Grandpa Shine said. “Let me tell you—”

  “Takes one to know one,” Gram said.

  “Marian,” Aunt Bailey said.

  “I thought Mom told you to behave,” I said.

  “What? Grandpa’s a great golfer,” Gram said, and winked.

  “Nothing like this guy.” Grandpa Shine grinned, jingled some spare change in his pocket.

  Ben looked at me, raised his eyebrows.

  Aunt Bailey grabbed Gram and shoved her toward the front door before she could say anything else. “We’ll wait for you two outside,” she said.

  There was the ring of a cell phone song, playing in the dark depths of someone’s purse. Hailey’s. She retrieved the phone, walked a few steps away, flipped it open, and plugged her other ear for better hearing. She laughed loudly. I finished my pancakes. Hailey handed her phone to her father.

  “Mom needs to speak with you,” she said.

  Amy smiled. Dan shut his eyes briefly as if hoping to find strength behind his eyelids.

  This was going to be the longest week of my life.

  chapter

  seven

  We rented mopeds at the Bishop Rock Moped Shack, and followed behind Gram and Aunt Bailey, who were ticking along at five miles an hour. I couldn’t really concentrate on the scenery because I was too worried about the way Aunt Bailey was screaming and then swerving toward the edge of the road whenever a car came. The edge, too—it went straight down a sheer rocky cliff toward the sea, and I had visions of a happy trip turned film noir. The twisted metal of a pink moped, splayed daffodil limbs on the rocks. Jesus.

  I scooted up next to Ben. At five miles an hour, you could carry on an entire conversation on one of those things, as if you were sitting comfortably in a living room.

  “Reminds me of you learning to drive,” I said. I went along once when Mom was teaching him, and I wore the old 49ers football costume that Great-Grandma Shine had given him, helmet, pads, and all, which made Mom laugh and pissed him off.

  “And who ripped the side mirror off the Berm
uda Honda?” he said.

  I shut up. Gram was getting too far ahead, and Ben was shouting at her to wait up, so obviously we were both worrying like parents whose toddler was walking too far ahead in a crowd. In town Gram put her turn signal on and then waited several weeks before pulling over. We all followed and parked behind her.

  Gray hair curled under Gram’s helmet. Her face was rosy. She unstrapped that helmet like a pro, held it under one arm, same as a NASCAR driver.

  “I stopped feeling my butt cheeks three miles back,” she said. “Who wants a Coca-Cola?”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  “Fine,” Ben said.

  “I can’t hear what you guys are saying,” Aunt Bailey said. She was struggling with the clasp of her helmet.

  “We were saying how our parents always liked me better,” Gram said.

  Ben helped Aunt Bailey with the clasp. She finally got that helmet off, and shook her hair loose. She’d been watching too many shampoo commercials. “My keister is still vibrating,” she said.

  We got Cokes in red plastic glasses at Butch’s Harbor Bar, one of those cool places with the groovy beer signs of waterfalls that look like they’re moving. That had to have been Butch behind the bar. He winked at Aunt Bailey, which made her blush. Ben ate fried clam strips and french fries, proving for the millionth time that he was always hungry. He and Janssen were both like that, I swear. They’d eat a big breakfast, and a half hour later they’d be scarfing cold pizza from the fridge. Still, both of them were lean. Janssen had those great strong shoulders, but he was trim from all those hours in the pool, practicing with the swim team. I remember the first time I watched him, racing against some team whose name I forget. The way he got out of the pool. The way he leaped out, with water dripping off of him, standing there with confidence, no thought at all to the crowd’s eyes on him. Me, I could watch him forever, he was so beautiful. My heart was so full then, it hurt. His wet skin. As slick as a seal. My seal.

  Gram and Aunt Bailey wanted to hit the shops, those cramped places with ceramic seagulls on rocks and glass floats held in nets. Ben and I were set free, and so we hit our respective gas pedals and headed out. For the first time you could see how beautiful the island was. Blue, twinkling sea set around the jagged curves; a lighthouse perched on one tip like a postcard picture. I breathed deep, salt air and sun, and I passed Ben just to be an ass, and he passed me to be a bigger one, and I started having a great time. We parked our mopeds by the lighthouse and sat out there on the grass, admiring the view. He handed me his phone to take his picture. He wanted to send it to Taylor, a girl he was seeing back at home.

  “Your ugly face is going to make her miss you?” I said. He actually looked great in the picture—blond hair, wavy, like Mom’s. He was starting to get tan.

  “You’re just jealous because I got all the looks and the brains,” he said. “Want me to do your picture?”

  “I don’t think Janssen would appreciate that.” I wrapped a piece of beach grass around one finger.

  “Yeah, he would. I’m sure he’s going crazy not being here.”

  “He tell you that?”

  Ben held up both hands. “Don’t know the details, not my business. Just know how he feels about you. All of us. Mom getting married, and not being here. You know how he loves her.”

  “Great. I feel like crap now.”

  “Look, I don’t even know what’s going on. I don’t care. As long as you two are happy. Together, not together, fine with me.”

  “Did he tell you what happened? What I did? God. I am truly a fuck-up. A mess.”

  “You were born that way. Hey, I don’t know anything. I don’t want to know. I’m just saying, it’s strange not having him here.”

  It was tricky when your best friend was going out with your sister. But Ben walked this great line. He loved us both and didn’t discuss us with each other. He had lots of practice keeping people separate, I guess. We’d both done the same with Mom and Dad. It was a skill. You had to have the firm tones and the patience of a recess teacher. If one veered too close to the other with questions or opinions—Is your Mom still with that guy? or Fathers need to show up emotionally and financially, you shut down the conversation as efficiently as Mrs. Johnson with her whistle on the Challenger Elementary School playground, separating Jason and Jared, who couldn’t play together without someone getting hurt.

  “Well, you’re right about that,” I said. “It is strange not having him here.”

  Ben got up, held out his hand to help me up too. “Let’s go buy some stupid T-shirts,” he said.

  We went into the cool, musty lighthouse gift store, bought two BISHOP ROCK ROCKS! shirts from the girl that worked there. I went into the bathroom to put mine on. Ben took his shirt off outside and wore his. We thought we were hilarious.

  I looked at Ben, straddling that moped, flinging up the kickstand with one foot. It made me think of him on his bike and me on mine. At our old-old house, even, the times we rode with Dad and Mom. And with just Mom, around the wooded trails. That time she screamed when she almost drove over a snake on the path.

  “What?” he said.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Come on, what?”

  I thought. “Not everything changes,” I said to him.

  I expected some smart-ass remark. But he just looked at me calmly. “Some things never will,” he said.

  When we got back, Gram and Aunt Bailey went to their rooms to clean up, and Ben went to his to take a nap. He slept as much as he ate, I swear. From my own windows I could see Dan Jax down there on the beach with Hailey and Amy. He was running back and forth, trying to get a kite to fly. He had his shorts and a T-shirt on, and his black hair was pulled back but was coming loose in frazzled strands. The kite would lift a foot or two above his head and then nose-dive into the sand. He was working so hard. I felt something I couldn’t name, maybe sadness, but not just sadness. The feeling you get, anyway, when you see good people trying and trying. Same as hearing Mom in the old days, too cheerful on the phone with the gas company, bill past due, or watching Janssen trying to change that tire when I got a flat one time, his face red and puzzled and the jack and hub cap and three of the four bolts lying on the street in the mocking way objects have after two hours of frustration.

  Of course, now I needed to go out there. Goddamn it. I had always preferred the peace that came with doing the right thing, like it or not. My attitude had been bad, and probably needed changing. Hailey and Amy were the ones who lived away from their father, and I saw more of him than they did. Maybe that’s what made them seem clinging and unhappy. They were thrown together with us too, and my old T-shirt and jeans were as foreign to them as their pink, tight clothes were to me. I hadn’t done much to help them feel welcome either, had I? Likely they were good people trying to adjust to something they didn’t ask for. The attitude I was feeling from them—well, what about mine? It could get complicated, maybe, to figure out who was rejecting who.

  I trotted down the boardwalk. “Hey, guys!” I shouted.

  “Cricket!” Dan’s face lit up. “We’re trying—”

  Hailey’s hands were stuck deep inside her sweatshirt. “He’s trying.”

  “No wind?”

  “Too much, not enough,” he said.

  Amy was throwing sticks down the beach for Cruiser, but when she saw me, she came running. She came up behind her father, stuck her fingers in his belt loops. “Dad!” she said, breathless. O-kay, I got the idea. He was hers. Might have been simpler to just urinate in a circle around him, same as the dogs. Her legs had sand on them, which she brushed off. She swatted at her ankles. “Something’s biting me.”

  Cruiser ran up from behind us, full speed. He was dragging a rope of seaweed in his teeth.

  “Eyuw, gross!” Hailey screamed, and dodged him.

  “Drop it, Cruiser,” Dan said. His voice was husky. He sounded exhausted.

  Cruiser dropped it. Then he started to roll in it. Dogs, the
y love their stinky stuff. We’d want to roll around in a summer day or new love or clover. But they want to roll around in glorious, smelly dead things.

  “Sick,” Hailey said.

  “You guys want to go to town or something? They’ve got the required beach town taffy shop,” I said.

  “That’s a great idea!” Dan said. He patted me on the back. “You can take my car!” He was suddenly talking in exclamation points. Dan wasn’t usually an exclamation point kind of guy, but now he was throwing them like spears at the approaching enemy. He was someone who always tried hard. You got the feeling he was always trying to make a kite fly in no wind if it made other people happy. It made you wish he’d wake up one day, open his window, and see a hundred kites flying all on their own.

  “We want to stay here,” Amy said.

  “My phone’s about to die,” Hailey said.

  “I can show you guys this rock cave I found yesterday,” I said. “Up the way from here. Very Hardy Boys. Totally cool.”

  Nothing. I tried a different approach.

  “A long walk in the sand is great for leg toning.”

  “All I’ve been doing is sitting around, eating,” Hailey said.

  “Great!” Dan said. “I can see how your mom and Rebecca are coming along.” He clapped his hands for Cruiser. “Come on, boy!” Cruiser ran full speed forward, had a little trouble stopping. Man, he looked happy. He loved it out there.

  “We’ll be fine.” Hailey sighed.

  Amy carefully brushed sand from her legs but didn’t say a word. “Come on!” I said. Awkward silences could bring out my inner camp counselor. It was Mom’s optimism coming down the genetic line, taking a left turn and becoming some twisted belief that you could cover up most shit with enthusiastic effort. Or maybe I’d learned this from Jupiter. She did the same thing every morning in the front yard.