My Life Next Door

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

  “I’m seventeen. I understand everything.” I have another flash of Clay and that woman. How do I bring it up? I lean past her for the strawberries.

  Mom reaches out to flick my cheek with a finger. “It’s when you say things like that that I remember how very young you are.” Then her face softens. “I know it’ll be hard for you to get used to Tracy being gone. Me too. It’ll be quiet around here. You understand that I’m going to have to be working hard all summer, don’t you, sweetie?”

  I nod. The house already seems still without Tracy’s off-key singing in the shower or her heels hammering down the stairs.

  Mom pulls the filtered water out of the refrigerator and pours it into the teakettle. “Clay says I’m bigger than this position. I could be important. I could be something more than the woman with the trust fund who bought her way into power.”

  There were a lot of editorials that said exactly that when she won the first time. I read them, winced, and hid the paper, hoping Mom never saw them. But of course she did.

  “It’s been so long since anyone has looked at me and really seen me,” she adds suddenly, standing there holding the filtered water. “Your father…well, I thought he did. But then…after him…you get busy and you get older…and nobody really looks your way anymore. You and Tracy…She’s off to college in the fall. That’ll be you in another year. And I think…It’s their turn now? Where did my chance go? It only took Clay a little while to come to terms with the fact that I had teenaged daughters. He sees me, Samantha. I can’t tell you how good that feels.” She turns and looks at me, and I’ve never seen her…glow like this.

  How can I say “Uh—Mom—I think he might be seeing someone else too”?

  I think of Jase Garrett, how he seems to understand without me having to explain things. Does Mom feel that way with Clay? Please don’t let him be some skeevy womanizer.

  “I’m glad, Mom,” I say. I hit BLEND and the kitchen fills with the sound of pulverizing strawberries and ice.

  She brushes the hair off my forehead, then sets the filtered water down and hovers near my elbow until I turn off the blender. Then silence.

  “You two, you and Tracy,” she finally says to my back, “are the best things that ever happened to me. Personally. But there’s more to life than personal things. I don’t want you to be the only things that ever happen to me. I want…” Her voice trails off and I turn around to find her looking away, off somewhere I can’t see. Suddenly, I feel afraid for her. As she stands there, her expression dreamy, she seems like a woman—not my mother, the vacuum cleaner queen, who rolls her eyes at the Garretts, at any uncertainty at all. I’ve only met Clay twice, really. He has charm, I guess, but apparently my dad did too. Mom’s always said that bitterly—“Your father had charm”—as though charm were some illicit substance he’d used on her that made her lose her mind.

  I clear my throat. “So,” I say, in what I hope is a casual, making-conversation tone, not a probing-for-info one, “how much do you know about Clay Tucker?”

  Mom’s eyes snap to me. “Why do you ask, Samantha? How is that your business?”

  This is why I don’t say things. I stick my spoon into my smoothie, squishing a slice of strawberry against the side. “I just wondered. He seems…”

  Like a potential disaster? Younger? Probably not a tactful way to put it. Is there a tactful way to put it?

  So I don’t finish my sentence—usually Mom’s technique for getting us to tell all. Incredibly, it works in reverse.

  “Well, one thing I do know is that he’s gone a long way for a relatively young man. He advised the RNC during the last campaign, he’s visited G. W. Bush at his Crawford ranch…”

  Well, ew. Tracy used to tease Mom about the reverent tone she used whenever she spoke the name of our former president: “Mo-om has a cru-ush on the Commander in Chiiee-eef.” I was always too creeped out by it to tease.

  “Clay Tucker is a real mover and shaker,” she says now. “I can’t believe he’s taking time for my little campaign.”

  I return the strawberries to the fridge, then root around my smoothie with my spoon, looking for more pieces of fruit that escaped the blender. “How’d he wind up in Stony Bay?” Did he bring a wife with him? A hometown honey?

  “He bought his parents a summer house on Seashell Island.” Mom opens the refrigerator and moves the strawberries from the second shelf, where I had put them, to the third shelf. “That little island downriver? He’s been burning himself out, so he came here for a little R and R.” She smiles. “Then he read about my race and couldn’t help wanting to get involved.”

  With the campaign? Or with Mom? Maybe he’s some kind of secret agent, looking for ways to discredit her. But that would never work. She hasn’t got any skeletons in the closet.

  “Is that okay?” I scoop out a strawberry and gobble it down. “That you’re sort of—dating—and he’s, um, advising you? I thought that was a no-no.”

  Mom’s always been incredibly strict about the line between the political and the personal. A few years ago, Tracy forgot to bring money to pay for skates at McKinskey Rink and the guy who ran it, a supporter of Mom’s, said not to worry. Mom marched Tracy right in there the next day and paid full price, even though Trace was skating in off-hours.

  Her eyebrows draw together. “We’re consenting adults, Samantha. Unmarried. There are no rules being broken here.” She lifts her chin, folding her arms. “I resent your tone.”

  “I—” But she’s already gone to the closet door and pulled out the vacuum cleaner, cranking it up to the soothing roar of a 747.

  I occupy myself with my smoothie, wondering how I could have handled that better. Mom practically ran background checks on Charley and Michael, not to mention some of Tracy’s more dubious choices. But when it’s her…

  The vacuum suddenly gives a guttural choking sound and stops dead. Mom shakes it, turns it off, unplugs it, tries again, but nothing.

  “Samantha!” she calls. “Do you know anything about this?” which I know from long experience means “Are you responsible for this?”

  “No, Mom. You know I never touch it.”

  She shakes it again, accusingly. “It was working fine last night.”

  “I didn’t use it, Mom.”

  Suddenly she’s yelling. “Then what is wrong with this thing? Of all the times for it to break! Clay’s coming for dinner with some potential campaign donors and the room’s only half-done.” She slams the vacuum cleaner down.

  As usual, the living room is pristine. You can’t even tell which side is the one she’s just vacuumed. “Mom. It’ll be fine. They won’t even notice.”

  She kicks the vacuum cleaner, glaring at me. “I’ll notice.”

  Okay.

  “Mom.” I’m used to her temper, but this seems over the top.

  Suddenly, abruptly, she unplugs the vacuum cleaner, gathers it up, walks across the room, and throws it out the front door. It lands with a crash on the driveway. I stare at her.

  “Don’t you have to be at work, Samantha?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Then, of course, work is particularly annoying because Charley Tyler and a bunch of the boys from school come in. Charley and I broke up amiably, but this still means lots of leering and “Avast, what do I see through my spyglass?” and jokes of the wanna-climb-my-mainmast variety. Naturally, they’re at one of my tables, table eight, and they keep me running back and forth for water and extra butter and more ketchup, just because they can.

  Finally, they get ready to leave. Thank God they overtip. Charley winks at me as they go, working the dimples. “The mainmast offer stands, Sammy-Sam.”

  “Get lost, Charley.”

  I’m cleaning up their completely trashed table when someone tugs at the waistband of my skirt.

  “Kid.”

  Tim’s unshaven, his rusty hair rumpled, still wearing the clothes he had on the last time I saw him, flannel pajama bottoms incongruous in the summer heat. Clearly, they
haven’t paid a visit to the washing machine.

  “Yo, I need some cash, rich girl.”

  This stings. Tim knows, or used to know, how much I hate that label, which got tossed at me by the kids on opposing swim teams.

  “I’m not going to give you money, Tim.”

  “’Cause I’ll ‘just spend it on booze,’ right?” he asks in a high, sarcastic voice, imitating Mom when we passed homeless people on visits to New Haven. “You know that ain’t necessarily so. I might spend it on weed. Or, if you’re generous and I’m lucky, blow. C’mon. Just gimme fifty.”

  He leans back against the counter, folding his hands and cocking his chin at me.

  I stare back. Face-off? Then, unexpected, he lunges for the pocket of my skirt, where I stash my tips. “This is nothing to you. Don’t know why the fuck you even work, Samantha. Just give me a few bucks.”

  I pull back, jerking away so abruptly I’m afraid the cheapo fabric of the skirt will tear. “Tim! Come on. You know I’m not going to.”

  He shakes his head at me. “You used to be cool. When did you turn into such a bitch?”

  “When you turned into such an asshole.” I brush past him with my tray full of dirty dishes. Tears spring to my eyes. Don’t, I think. But Tim used to know me as well as anyone could.

  “Trouble?” Ernesto the cook asks, looking up from the six frying pans he’s got going simultaneously. Breakfast Ahoy is not a health food restaurant.

  “Just some jerk.” I dump the dishes into the bussing bin with a clatter.

  “Nothing new there. Damn town full of damn folks with silver spoons up their damn…”

  Oops. Inadvertently activated Ernesto’s “favorite rant” button. I tune him out, paste on a fierce smile, and go back to deal with Tim, but the flash of a dirty plaid pajama cuff and the slam of the door is the only sign of him. There’s a skim of coins on the table by the door, and a few more on the ground. The rest of my tip is gone.

  There was this day a few weeks into seventh grade at Hodges, before Tim got kicked out, when I’d forgotten my lunch money and was looking for Tracy or Nan. Instead I ran into Tim, sitting in the bushes with the worst of the worst of Hodges’ stoner crowd—Tim, who, as far as I knew till then, was as innocent of all that stuff as me and Nan. The hub of the crowd was Drake Marcos, this senior druggie guy who always hung with an equally well-baked posse. Quite the achievement for the college essay.

  “Oh, it’s Tracy Reed’s sister. Take a load off, Tracy Reed’s sister. You look tense. You need to re-laaax,” Drake said. The other kids laughed as though he was hysterically funny. I glanced at Tim, who was staring at his feet.

  “Walk on the wild side, Tracy Reed’s sister.” Drake waved a bag of—I didn’t even know what—at me.

  I made some lame comment about how I had to get to class, which Drake enjoyed riffing on for several seconds with lots of sycophantic chortles from his loyal groupies.

  I started to leave, then turned back and called “Come on” to Tim, who was still staring at his loafers.

  That was when he finally looked at me. “Fuck off, Samantha.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It takes me a while to shake off Tim’s visit, but things at Breakfast Ahoy come at you fast, and that helps.

  Today, however, it’s all bad.

  The morning also features a woman who becomes extremely indignant when we can’t allow her cockapoo to sit at the table with her and a man with two extremely cranky toddlers who throw the jam and sugar packets at me, and squirt mustard and ketchup into their napkin dispenser. As I walk home, I check my cell messages, finding one from Mom, still sounding peeved, telling me to clean the house: “Make it immaculate,” she emphasizes. And then “Make yourself scarce, as Clay’s bringing those donors over.”

  My mother has never asked me to make myself scarce. Is it because I asked about Clay? I walk up the driveway, pondering this, then see the vacuum cleaner, still sprawled like a vagrant.

  “Samantha!” Jase calls from around our fence. “You okay? Looks like life was tough today on the bounding main.”

  “No sailor jokes, please. Believe me, I’ve heard ’em all.”

  He walks closer, smiling, shaking his head. Today he’s wearing a white T-shirt that makes him look even tanner. “I bet you have. Seriously, are you all right? You look, uh, disheveled, and that’s rare for you.”

  I explain about cleaning the house and making myself scarce. “And,” I say as I kick it, “the vacuum cleaner is broken.”

  “I can fix that. Let me get my kit.” He jogs off before I can say anything. I go inside, ditch the sailor garb, and pull on a light blue sundress. I’m pouring lemonade when Jase knocks.

  “In the kitchen!”

  He comes in, carrying the vacuum cleaner in both arms like an accident victim, his tool kit dangling from one thumb. “Which is the part of your house that isn’t clean?”

  “My mother’s kind of particular.”

  Jase nods, raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. He sets the vacuum cleaner down on the tile, opens the toolbox, and cocks his head at it, searching for the right utensil, evidently. I stare at the muscles in his arms and suddenly have such a strong urge to reach out and run my fingers down them that it scares me. Instead, I spray the countertop with disinfectant and attack it with a paper towel. Out damned spot.

  He’s got the vacuum cleaner fixed in less than five minutes. The culprit was apparently one of Clay’s cufflinks. I suppress the image of Mom wrestling it off in a frenzy of cougar lust. Then Jase helps me reclean the immaculate downstairs.

  “Hard to feel I’m making progress when it was already so perfect,” he says, vacuuming under an armchair cushion as I adjust the already symmetrically aligned throw pillows. “Maybe we should get George and Patsy over here, use some Play-Doh and finger paints and then make brownies, so there’s actually something to clean.”

  When we’re done Jase asks, “Do you have a curfew?”

  “Eleven o’clock,” I say, confused since it’s just early afternoon.

  “Get a jacket and your bathing suit, then.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “You’re supposed to make yourself scarce, right? Come get lost in the crowd at my house, then we’ll figure something else out.”

  As always, the contrast between the Garretts’ yard and ours is extreme—Dorothy walking out of black and white and into Technicolor. Alice is playing Frisbee with some guy. Little shrieks and screams are coming from the pool. Harry’s whacking away at a T-ball stand, but with a tennis racket. Alice wings the Frisbee at Jase, who catches it easily and throws it to the guy—not Cleve-who-knew-the-score, but a hulking football-player type. I hear Mrs. Garrett saying loudly from the pool area, “George! What did I tell you about peeing in here?”

  Then the screen door bursts open and Andy charges out, carrying about five different bathing suits. “Alice! You have to help me.”

  Alice rolls her eyes. “Just pick one, Andy. It’ll be fine. It’s only a date.”

  Andy, a pretty fourteen-year-old with braces, shakes her head, looking near tears. “A date with Kyle. Kyle! Alice. I’ve never even been asked on a date and now I have. And you won’t even help.”

  “What’s up, Ands?” Jase walks over to her.

  “Kyle Comstock. From sailing camp? I’ve practically capsized the boat looking at him for three whole summers now? He asked me to go to the beach and then the Clam Shack. Alice is completely and totally no help whatsoever. All Mom says is to wear sunscreen.”

  Alice shakes her head impatiently. “C’mon Brad, let’s get wet.” She and the football-player type march off toward the pool.

  Jase introduces me to Andy, who turns anxious hazel eyes on me. “Can you help? No one should have to have a first date in a bathing suit. It’s unfair.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  Andy spreads the bathing suits out on the ground. “Three one pieces, two bikinis. Mom says the bik
inis are out. What do you think, Jase?”

  “No bikinis on a first date.” He nods. “I’m sure that’s a rule. Or should be. For my sisters anyway.”

  “What’s he like?” I ask, surveying the other suits.

  “Kyle? Oh, well, you know. Perfect?” She waves her hands.

  “You need to be more specific, Ands,” Jase says dryly.

  “Funny. Sporty. Popular. Cute but doesn’t act like he knows it? The kind who makes everybody laugh without trying too hard.”

  “That one.” I point to the red Speedo.

  “Thank you. What about after we swim? Do I change into a dress? Do I put on makeup? How do I even talk to him? Why did I agree to do this? I hate clams!”

  “Get a hot dog,” Jase advises. “They’re cheaper. He’ll appreciate it.”

  “No makeup. You don’t need it,” I add. “Especially after the beach. Throw some conditioner in your hair so it keeps the wet look. A dress is good. Ask lots of questions about him.”

  “You have saved my very life. I shall be indebted to you for all eternity,” Andy says fervently, and streaks back into the house.

  “I’m fascinated,” Jase observes in an undertone. “How did you decide which suit?”

  “She said sporty,” I respond. The skin at the back of my neck gives this little twitch at the sound of his voice so close to my ear. “Plus her dark hair and tan skin with red. I’m probably jealous. My mom says blondes can’t wear red.”

  “Here I thought Sailor Supergirl could do anything.” Jase opens the door to the kitchen, motioning me in.

  “Sadly, my powers are limited.”

  “Can you make sure this Kyle Comstock is a good guy? That would be a useful power.”

  “You’re telling me,” I say. “I could use that one with my mom’s boyfriend. But no.”

  Without saying anything further Jase heads for the stairs, and, snake-charmed again, I follow him up toward his room, to be met in the hallway by a very wide-eyed Duff. He has the family chestnut hair, slightly long, and round green eyes. He’s huskier than Jase, and a lot shorter.