“You wanna go somewhere else?” Caleb runs a hand over his short hair, and his face is scrunched up in a way that tells me this was his plan. He doesn’t want me to say yes. And so I don’t. I shake my head, force a smile, and tell him it’s fine. The only thing calming my nerves at all is the fact that Caleb isn’t much more dressed up than I am. He’s wearing a button-up shirt, but it’s short-sleeved, and we’re both wearing sandals. Not the cute, dressy kind; the beach kind. Flip-flops. And as mine smack against the tiled entryway, I tell myself to breathe. That no one is looking at me, or noticing what I’m wearing.
You’ll never see any of these people again. The words remind me of Asher, of what he said to me as we stood outside the doors of that house just last night. Before I can stop myself I’m thinking about the kiss. As Caleb and I are led to our table, tucked away in a dark corner, I can feel Asher’s lips, warm and slow. The weight of his hand laid on top of mine. The scrape of the grass against my bare legs as I twisted myself toward him. I have a menu in my hands by the time I shake myself free from the thoughts.
“This is really nice,” I say, looking across the room at the small wooden tables topped with candles and white china. The long row of windows overlooking the lake in the distance. The light fixtures all glow amber, and everything about this place feels warm.
“It was my mom’s idea.” Caleb grimaces, as if he brought her with us. “I made the reservation myself.”
He smiles and when I laugh he does, too. And it feels like something inside me snaps, because I’m not nervous anymore. The waiter offers us a wine list, and looks nervous that we might actually take it. Caleb asks me if the fritters sound good as an appetizer, and when I nod he orders them. While we wait, he tells me about how his dad brought his mom here on their first date, and it’s both sweet and weird. Sweet that he tells me, weird to think that this could be the start of something. Weirder because he also adds that they’re divorced.
When the appetizer arrives, he awkwardly puts a few pieces on his plate with the little silver tongs they brought us. In my opinion, anything that is stick-shaped and fried is finger food. This isn’t what I had in mind when I thought of a first date with Caleb. I figured we’d be riding the little water bumper boats at the tiny amusement park on the edge of town, or going on a dune-buggy ride. Silver tongs and sea bass were not on my radar.
My sea bass is delicious, though. And as I pick pieces off with my fork, and Caleb saws at his steak, I realize we haven’t had to talk about anything real yet. We’ve had witty banter, and fun flirting, and quirky produce shopping, but we don’t actually know anything about each other yet. Except that his parents went on a first date in this very restaurant. So technically, I know more about his parents than I do about Caleb.
When my fish is gone I break the silence. “Do you play any sports?”
He shakes his head. “Not since seventh grade. It turns out it takes more than being tall to be any good at basketball.”
I smile and nod. “Yeah, I was the tallest girl in my class in seventh grade, and I was the absolute worst at basketball.”
“You swim, right?” He must catch the surprise on my face because he immediately offers, “Kara mentioned it.”
My heart swells a little at the thought of him asking about me. Good sign.
“Yeah, I’m swimming at Oakwood in the fall.” It still feels weird to say it. Weird that after all of these years of dreaming it, it’s actually happening. I always hoped it would happen, but maybe deep down I prepared myself, just a little, for my dream to end after high school.
“Cool,” he says, sticking another bite of red meat into his mouth. There’s a long stretch of silence and with every second that ticks by I deflate a little more. There’s something really shitty about someone not realizing when something is a big deal to you. That you spent thousands of hours of your life working toward something, and you’re in a small fraction of people that actually made it. It’s not that I need everyone to ooh and ahh about it, but he’s obviously not interested. At all.
“Yeah,” I say, sticking a forkful of rice into my mouth. I kind of want to ask him if he has any beloved pets, and then give a dismissive shrug when he mentions them. I totally wouldn’t do something that mean to anyone but Asher though, and the thought makes my lips quirk up just a little.
“What?” Caleb asks, eyeing me quizzically.
“Hm?”
“You were smiling.”
Was I? I just shake my head because words are hard right now. And maybe going on a date the day after that kiss wasn’t such a good idea. Or maybe, that was the whole idea. Could Asher have known? Last night is such a blur; did I tell him? I’m stabbing a piece of fish ten times more aggressively than is necessary when Caleb’s voice cuts through the quiet. “What are you going to major in?”
“I don’t know, actually.”
“Really?” The surprise on his face unsettles me.
“Really. Why does that surprise you?” You hardly know me, I silently add.
“Kara just mentioned that you’re … well, she didn’t use these words exactly … but she said you’re super organized. That you like plans.” He makes a slashing motion with his hand like he’s karate chopping the air.
I push some rice around on my plate. “I do like a good list. You’ll have to stop talking to Kara or she’ll give away all my secrets.”
“I’m sure you have more exciting secrets.” His lips turn up in a smile and mine do, too. We’re back to the flirting, the witty banter, and when he drops me off at my house, he doesn’t kiss me, but I can tell he wants to. But he’s a nice guy, the kind that tries to impress you on a first date, and doesn’t steal kisses. And as I’m sitting at the kitchen table eating one of my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies, a text chimes on my phone.
It’s true—almost. Tonight was a perfectly adequate night, but I’m not sure that when Kara grills me about it, I’ll call it fun. Caleb is nice enough, but there’s definitely something missing there. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like waiting ten days to find out what exactly that thing is.
Oh god. Did I seriously just type casual?
I’m just tucking my phone into my pocket when I open the door to my bedroom and my bare feet come into contact with something wet and cold. A breath later they slip out from under me. I crash onto my back, and my hands slip and slide as I struggle to grab hold of anything in the darkness of my room. Something thick and oily coats my hands and my feet, and as my eyes adjust, I see that the floor is shining with a white slickness. While I was out with Caleb, being completely traumatized by last night’s kiss, Asher was continuing to torment me. He was rolling out what must be hundreds of feet of Saran Wrap. It’s thick under me, taut over the thin, worn carpet, running in every direction, like a second floor under my feet. I raise a hesitant finger to my nose. Mayonnaise. I hate mayonnaise.
In my brain there are a million perfectly orchestrated pranks prepared for this summer. But as the light of the little fish-cleaning house glares into my room, throwing slashes of light over my floor that now glistens with the world’s most disgusting condiment … a new idea overshadows all of them.
It’s on.
DAY 8
Asher
When I leave for a run around ten, I’m not nervous that Sidney is sitting on the deck staring daggers at me. Because Sidney doesn’t do anything on a whim. She’d never decide at 8:05 p.m. to go to the store and buy twenty rolls of Saran Wrap. To her credit, she would have worked out the square footage and known that she didn’t need twenty rolls. That it was total overkill, and she could get by with twelve.
After two hours of watching a movie with our parents, I snuck away to the bathroom, opened her bedroom window, and then told everyone I was going to bed. I felt like crap so I’m sure I looked it. Totally believable. Twenty minutes later, when everyone moved down to the fire pit with giant margarita mugs in hand, I slipped in through the window and went to work.
Some
times the beauty of a prank is in the spontaneity of it. The thrill of being caught, the last-minute problem-solving. It took me an hour just to tape the Saran Wrap to the baseboards and stretch it in a giant haphazard weave across the room, making sure I covered every square inch. Of course, if I had planned things out like Sidney, I would have realized I should start the mayo at the far end of the room, and work my way back to the window. Sidney wouldn’t have had mayonnaise-covered shoes sitting in her room all night. But even if those sneakers smell like mayo for the rest of my life, it will be worth it to think about Sidney sliding across the room when she got back from her date.
* * *
It’s a sweltering hot day, and I spend it on the lake, swimming the shoreline after lunch and lying on the dock through the afternoon.
“Ash!” I’m sitting on our deck reading a book when my mom’s voice rings out of the kitchen. It’s close to dinnertime, and I take my book with me, knowing I’m about to be enlisted for some sort of food prep. But Mom isn’t working on dinner, she’s purging or something. The table is covered with the contents of our fridge as my mom holds a package of some sort of meat up to her nose.
She thrusts the package at me. “Smell this.”
“Um. Okay?” I sniff the package she’s holding out toward me. “It … smells like meat, I think.”
“Like good meat?”
“Yes?” I don’t know if I’ve actually smelled raw meat before. “It sort of smells like nothing?”
She nods at me, like I’ve just confirmed she’s not losing her mind, and turns away from me, pulling another white Styrofoam package out of the refrigerator and giving it an appraising glance before sniffing it. I’m about to ask her what she’s doing when I smell it. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, just that it’s wrong and out of place, and bad.
“Go smell the drains in the bathroom,” Mom says with a sigh. “Maybe something’s backing up?”
I don’t know if that’s how plumbing works, but Mom looks so frustrated sitting on the floor of our kitchen sniffing all of our food that I’m not going to question it.
“Where’s Dad?”
“I sent him to the store for baking soda boxes.”
I nod, even though the longer I stand here, the less I believe baking soda is going to fix this problem.
In the bathroom I smell the sink drain, and the tub, and then the toilet, just to cover all of my bases. But now that this odor has invaded my nose, it’s all I smell.
Smells are weird. On one hand, they’re unmistakable. The smell of pancakes on the griddle can take me back to Saturday mornings at my grandma’s house the second I smell it. I can tell if a pool has too much chlorine without ever getting in the water. But right now, the smell overtaking our house is like a word stuck on the tip of my tongue. Every time I think I can name it, it’s just out of reach.
I go from room to room, pulling up blinds and opening windows as far as they’ll go. First the living room, then my parents’ room, the bathroom next to it, and then my room. I might throw up. There’s nothing different about my room, except for the overwhelming smell. Whatever is in this house, my room is ground zero.
“Mom?” I shout toward my doorway as I start to pull things away from the wall, looking for vents. The only explanation for a smell this bad is that something has died somewhere.
My mom stops a few feet back from the door. “Oh god,” she mutters.
“I think something died in here. Maybe we should have Nadine call somebody?”
“I’ll go up to the house.”
This isn’t going to be fixed quickly, but Mom still sprints out of the house, as if every second she wastes will count.
I’m headed across the room toward the last small window when I see the pile of mayonnaise-coated socks and shorts from last night. There’s a towel, too. But without even smelling it, I know it can’t be the cause of this.
Oh crap.
Out the window I can see Mom crossing Nadine’s yard, closing in on the back porch. I throw myself at the window and yell her name. She stops in her tracks.
“Has Sidney been here?” I’m trying to keep my voice in check, but I can hear the annoyance.
Mom is far enough away that she’s almost yelling for her voice to carry far enough. “What? Why?”
“Mom. Yes or no? Has Sidney been in the house today? While I was gone?”
She nods, and takes a few more steps toward Nadine’s house. I’m out of my room and through the house in a heartbeat, and before I know it, I’m across the yard and practically sprinting down the sidewalk toward the deck. Sidney’s sitting at the little plastic table, rocks spread in front of her, and when my feet pound on the wood planks, her head snaps up. The look on her face when she sees the annoyance on mine is enough to confirm my suspicions.
“What did you do?”
She narrows her eyes at me and turns back to her rocks, swiping her brush across a shiny black one. “You can dish it out but you can’t take it?”
Sidney
“You started it.” When it comes out of my mouth I regret how much I sound like a bratty eight-year-old, but I don’t regret saying it. I’m not sure why I even have to explain it to him. This is what we do, it’s who we are.
“In what delusional world did I start any of this?”
“Pffsh.” It sounds like a wild animal is stuck in my throat. “I still smell like mayo, Asher.”
“And before that?”
“Hey, you deserved to wake up and regret you ever drank that much. I was covered in bug bites from babysitting you, just so you wouldn’t die in a puddle of—
“—my own vomit.” Asher rolls his eyes. “I know, I know. I wasn’t that drunk, Sidney. You could have left anytime you wanted.”
That sounds like an accusation and I don’t appreciate it. Wasn’t that drunk? He was drunk enough to kiss me. “And before that?” Before that, he kissed me. And I regret asking, because I don’t actually want him to say it out loud.
“Before that, I put Kool-Aid in your shower. You smelled like cherry. My whole house smells like something died. My mom is losing her shit in there.” He nods up at the house and my eyes follow.
Crap. Crapcrapcrap. “I didn’t mean—”
“Just come fix whatever you did. We’ve searched the whole house. What did you do, stick something in the vents? Put some sort of slow-release capsules into our drains?”
I wish I’d thought ahead enough to do any of those things. “I put a fish under your bed.” I don’t meet his eyes. “Well, not a whole fish, more like fish … parts, I guess. But they were wrapped in paper, like at the grocery store and—”
“Caleb teach you that trick?” He shakes his head. “Paper, Sid?”
“I didn’t realize. I mean, it was all frozen, and I just thought…”
“Our houses are a million degrees; you obviously weren’t thinking.”
There’s nothing I can say, so I just shake my head. He’s right. I was so mad last night, so worked up after my mediocre date, after finding my room like that when I was already mad at him about the kiss. I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t acting like myself at all.
He’s already walking away from me. “Just fix it.”
If Asher weren’t in front of me, I would sprint to the house to tell Sylvie how sorry I am. But instead I leave a healthy distance between us, so it doesn’t feel so much like I’m being summoned. Asher can be a real drama llama when he wants to be, but when I step into the kitchen and see the counters covered with food and the fridge swung open, completely bare, I know this isn’t one of those times. And the smell … oh man. I am in so much trouble right now.
My skin prickles at the thought of facing Sylvie and Greg, and my parents, when they hear about this. “Where’s your mom?”
Asher is standing at the edge of the living room, where the little hallway branches off toward his room on one side and his parents’ on the other. “I told her to hang out at your house and take a breather.” He shoves his hands into his s
horts pockets. “She doesn’t need to see this.”
I wonder if it’s him he’s worried about looking bad, or me. Either way, I’m thankful I don’t have to see Sylvie right now, while I’m the reason her house smells like this. Asher walks toward his room and I follow.
He doesn’t look at me, and I don’t say anything. When his bedroom door opens, I’m hit by a second, stronger wave of stench. Crap crap crap. “Fix it,” is all Asher says as he closes the door behind him, entombing us in the smell.
“This isn’t what I thought it would smell like,” I mutter as I get down on my hands and knees in front of his bed.
“What did you think it would smell like?”
I grope a hand around under his bed. “Like the seafood section at the supermarket?” It’s not actually a question, it’s the truth. I thought it would smell like the little space around the lobster tank. But the truer answer is that I didn’t think.
Asher shakes his head. My hand fumbles on something wet and soft, and I almost hurl right on the side of his bed, but I make myself hold on to it and pull it out. The newspaper is soaked through, disintegrating in my hands. All around it, the carpet is wet.
“Sidney…” Asher’s voice is a perfect balance of disgust, disappointment, and sadness. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so shamed by the use of my name. “What were you thinking?”
His eyes go from the mushy pile in my hands to his bed. Being sure to avoid me, he pushes his mattress up against the wall, exposing the metal frame underneath. There’s a dark wet spot, and just as Asher steps into the rectangular frame, a muffled voice comes from the house. “Hello?”
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