The Truth About Fragile Things (9 page)

“Where’s mom?”

“Getting her hair cut. She thought you’d be here right after school.”

I turned off the burner. “I could go to the store and get another bag.”

At that she began her signature mix of laughing and crying. It is impossible to tell if she is genuinely upset or just teasing. She slumped onto the floor. “Why weren’t you here? You could have saved them.” She flashed me a smile while a tear rolled from her eye and I gave her exactly what she wanted. I started laughing. She knows she can always crack me.

“You are so abnormal,” I informed her.

“Where were you?” she demanded.

“I was at Charlotte’s house.”

Her face went from teasing to disbelief. “Charlotte Exby? You went to her house? What were you doing?”

I opened the refrigerator to see if we had enough butter for a second attempt at Lauren’s snack. The door conveniently hid my face so I wouldn’t have to look at her. “Before her dad died he left a list of things he wanted to do. Charlotte and I are going to do them together.” I peeked around the door and studied her expression as it wrinkled with worry. I wondered if it was a preview of my parents’ reaction.

Lauren scooted over and patted the wood floor next to her, inviting me to sit. I closed the fridge and lowered myself down, leaning against the oak island. Her mouth opened a few times before she actually spoke. “You and the girl who hates you are finishing her dad’s to-do-before-I-die list?”

“To-do list,” I mused. “I like that so much better than bucket list.”

“Oh yeah, bucket list. That’s what they call them. You’re doing his bucket list?” Lauren’s mouth stretched back into a strange grimace. “Creepy much?”

“Not creepy. Important. Closure.” I put the last marshmallow in my mouth as revenge for her creepy comment. “I never got to tell him thank you. I want to do this.”

Lauren looked contrite, nodded once. “I guess I get that. But I thought Charlotte hated you.”

“She mostly does,” I sighed. “But I think we can work around that.”

“Can I help?” she asked, her eyes bright with the prospect of a project.

“Yes,” I promised. “You can help me figure out how to tell Mom and Dad so they’ll let me take a fourteen year old backpacking and whitewater rafting.”

“Like in the wilderness?” Lauren used her fingers to mime a person walking up her leg to the top of her knee. “You and a younger girl are going hiking alone?” She paused, relishing, waiting for a punch line.

I flicked her finger person and watched him plummet off the cliff of her leg.

“They would never,” Lauren declared. “You can’t kill a spider. You are not exactly a roughing-it person.”

“And you are?” I shot back.

“I could fake it better than you. I would just pack sugar.” She started to moan again and I held up the empty bag, letting it swing from my fingers. She wrinkled her nose. “Deal,” she sighed unhappily. “For marshmallows. But I would have helped you anyway.”

“I know.” I stood and retrieved my keys. “I would have made you Rice Krispie Treats anyway. But you wash the pot.” I looked inside at the hardening, yellowed mess. “Good luck,” I wished her before the front door closed.

“You owe me,” she called loud enough for me to hear through the door.

“Take a number,” I whispered.

At the store I grabbed the marshmallows first and then went to the party aisle where I found blue crepe paper and yellow paper lanterns. I bought a pack of yellow plates and blue napkins and headed home to put Lauren out of her misery. While the butter melted I arranged my party supplies on the counter so my mother would see them when she got home. It seemed like an attractive way to introduce the topic.

“Are you doing a cake?” Lauren asked.

“I have some ideas. Maybe see if there are some bikes about the size of matchbox cars and put them on top.”

“You could make a road out of crushed cookies,” Lauren offered.

“I like that. Pour the entire bag in now,” I pointed to the saucepan with the spatula. Lauren popped one in her mouth first and poured as I stirred. “We could do rock candy for boulders and what for grass?” I asked.

“Dyed coconut always works.” My mother’s voice chirped right behind us. “What’s the project?”

“How long were you listening? I didn’t even hear you come in.” I reached out my free arm to give her a hug while my other kept stirring. “Get the cereal now,” I directed Lauren.

“I came in at cookie road. Are you making something for school?” Mom shook out her newly styled hair, the brown locks swooping under her chin.

“You look pretty,” I told her. “Nothing for school. The Rice Krispie Treats were a Lauren emergency.” Lauren nodded her head enthusiastically and grabbed a glass pan from the cupboard. “The other is for a surprise party a friend is throwing.”

“What friend?” my mom asked, sitting at the island while I spooned the dessert into the pan. Lauren kept pulling hot stringy chunks from the bowl until I smacked her with my spatula.

“Ow,” she squeaked. “That was very Italian of you.”

“Wait till it cools,” I said.

“I’d rather die.” She scooped up a corner and after several attempts got it to drop off her fingers into her mouth. “Hot. Very hot. Mom, Megan hit me with a spoon,” she said, with a pout that couldn’t hide her smiling dimples.

“I’ll punish her soundly,” my mother promised and turned back to me. “What friend? Is that what the party supplies are for?” she asked when she spotted the pile of paper goods.

“About that…” I stalled. “I kind of have some news for you and Dad.”

“Then kind of tell me.” She reached toward the pan and I pushed it to her so she could grab a bite.

“And you wonder where I get it,” Lauren said thickly through her full mouth.

“I wonder a great many things about you, my dear,” Mom retorted.

“Lauren, you’re on dish duty,” I reminded her as I sat next to Mom. “And don’t run cold water on it. Make sure it’s hot.”

I spread my hands on the countertop, pressing my nervousness through my fingertips into the cold granite. “It’s actually about Bryon Exby,” I said in my gentlest voice.

Mom’s head moved back in surprise, but she held her tongue, waiting.

“Do you remember that he had a daughter?” I asked.

She nodded, anxiety making her hazel eyes flash strange colors. “Of course.”

“Her name was Charlotte,” I watched Lauren’s back as she stood at the sink. “Is Charlotte,” I corrected.

“I remember. Why are you bringing it up?” Mom asked through a stiff mouth.

“She just transferred to my school.”

My mother dropped her hands and pulled in a tight breath. “When?”

“I guess since the beginning of the year. Her mom remarried and they moved here.”

The words came clipped and agitated. “You knew this—”

“No. I had no idea. She’s only a freshman. We have two thousand people at school. She heard someone say my name and she figured out who I was. She came to me and told me.”

Lauren stopped the water and turned to watch my mother’s face. It moved from one expression to another too quickly to analyze. “What is she like?” Mom asked, barely above a whisper.

Because I have been trained in drama classes never to fill in time saying “um”, I sat motionless, silent, thinking. Best to skip over the hostility for now. “She wanted me to know that she forgave me,” I finally answered.

My mother exhaled in relief and then started firing questions. I held up a hand to fend them off. “She is doing a special project and I want to talk to you about it.” I filled her in on Bryon’s list and how much Charlotte wanted to cross off each item. “I know it’s kind of strange, but it bothers me that I never thanked him. I offered to help Charlotte with the list and it would mean a lot to do those things with her.”

My mother searched my face and I realized it was too smooth, too unreadable. I do that without meaning to. I pulled up a small, sad, smile.

“I guess it depends what’s on the list,” she said.

“Nothing bad, like objectionable. Some of it’s kind of more…involved.”

“Like?” Mom probed.

“Like river rafting.”

Mom’s forehead wrinkled and her eyebrows drew together so I continued quickly. “But the first one is to throw a surprise party. That’s easy. We want to do it this Saturday, for her stepdad.”

Mom drummed her manicured fingers on the counter and looked down at her feet. Her tapping nails made the only sound in the house. “How is Charlotte doing?”

I met her gaze, saw an old sorrow rising to the surface.

“It’s hard,” I answered.

Mom nodded and said quietly, “I’ll talk to Dad about it. I think it might be a good thing.”

“Can I go rafting?” Lauren asked.

“No,” Mom and I answered together.

“But,” I offered in consolation, “I’ll buy you some marshmallow fluff.”

“I cannot be bought,” Lauren argued.

I didn’t move my eyes from hers and at last she huffed and threw her hands out. “I want two marshmallow fluffs and a key lime pie. On demand, whenever I request it.”

Mom laughed while I took the deal. And then I had to go back to the store because apparently, after you eat hot Rice Krispie Treats you need a cold slice of key lime pie to wash it down.

When my dad came into my room that night I was already wrapped in my favorite blanket, marking a script for auditions.

“Hard at work?” he asked, sitting down next to me.

“Almost done,” I told him. I drew the highlighter across the last line and dropped it into my lap.

“Do you think you’ll get a good part?” My dad secretly wanted to be an actor all his life. He loves my plays more than I do. Almost.

“I hope so. I think so.” I swung my hair back and leaned against my headboard.

“I’m sure so,” he said. He looked around my room and his eyes settled back on me after studying the lamp on my dresser for longer than necessary. “Mom told me about Charlotte Exby.”

I nodded and could see my nervousness mirrored in his eyes.

“I think it’s a really good idea,” he said.

“You do?” I leaned forward and my script slid to the floor and scattered.

Dad reached down and gathered the papers together before setting them on my nightstand. “I do. So much so that your mom and I talked and we had a thought. We want to fund it. I mean—if it’s huge and expensive like going to Uruguay we’ll need to figure something out, but if it’s reasonable, we want to pay for it.”

“Really?” I wrapped my slim hand around his calloused thumb.

“Can you tell me more about the list?” he asked.

“I can show it to you. Charlotte made me a copy.” I crossed the room to my backpack. After I handed it to him I crawled back on the bed, poised over his shoulder as he read.

“Where could you go river rafting?” was his first question.

I told him Phillip knew a good spot in Southeast Missouri on the Current River where we could practice. “But he says Colorado is best.”

“And the diamond earrings? Why is that one crossed off?”

I rested my chin on his shoulder, felt it dig in next to his collarbone. “Because she got married and her new husband happened to give her some.”

When dad said “Hm” it growled in his chest and vibrated against my jaw.

“What?” I asked him.

“Does that count?” His face was set in concentration and for the first time in my life I knew exactly where I got that expression. My worry comes from my mother. My tendency to analyze everything is definitely from my father.

“Now you’re thinking like us.” I watched his lips copy mine, turned up in a secret smile. “We concluded he wanted his wife to have diamond earrings and she has them. So I guess it counts.”

“Well, that certainly takes care of a more expensive one.” He hummed again with unspoken thoughts. “What about skinny dipping?”
        “Well, Charlotte can do that one.
I’m
not.”

He squinted and waited, testing me. When I didn’t flinch he relaxed. “Better not,” he murmured good-naturedly. “But you can tell Charlotte that we are happy to help with this—minus the skinny dipping. My hands are clean of that one. When you come to one that costs something, let me know.” A faint, dark shadow of his heavy beard ran along his cheek. I studied the sharp hairs that refused to wait for his next shave before they reappeared.

“Thank you,” I said. Then I squinted and held back a smile. “Why did you think of Uruguay?”

“What? When did I think of Uruguay?”

“When you said you couldn’t pay for us to go to Uruguay.”

He rubbed his lips together and pulled out some Chapstick. He’d kept a tube of it in his front shirt pocket since the first time my chubby hand explored his shirt. “I was just saying a random place.”

“I know. But do you always think of Uruguay first?”

He smoothed the Chapstick over his lips and offered it to me. He knows we both dry out like salamanders. “I don’t think of random places often,” he said, dropping it back into his pocket when I shook my head. “Why? Was that wrong?”

“No. I just usually say Indonesia when I have to pull up a random spot.”

He nodded like he was examining a news article. “Interesting choice. A little pedestrian, but not terrible.”

“Way more imaginative than Uruguay,” I countered.

He gave me one of his best grins and patted my foot. “I’d be so bored without you.” His eyes turned soft, narrowed, sad. I could still feel the tiny kiss he left on the top of my head five minutes later.