ONE
Forsythia
Friday…
“Your stepbrother's hot,” Hannah whispers. Notes for our Hamlet presentation scatter the table but her attention has drifted. “Why didn't you tell me he was hot?"
This is her first semester back after three years in Missouri, but I’d just assumed she’d gotten the memo.
“Dan's not my stepbrother,” I say, flipping ahead in my notebook.
From the sound of it, Dan's making more of a fuss than expressly necessary to drink milk straight from the carton. Footsteps pad needlessly on linoleum, drawers open and close. Three times I hear the hum of the refrigerator. As if he needs to check it that many times. It's not like the two food items in our fridge are procreating.
He must have heard what she said. Now he's sticking around to see how long he can hold her attention.
The gambit works. Hannah remains absorbed in his improvised kitchen mission. A broad, theatrical yawn soon follows and I seriously consider hurling my Complete Works of Shakespeare at him. Truth is, Dan never yawns like that when he's actually tired or bored. This yawn is all about the stretch. Reaching his arms above his head has the effect of hiking up his Misfits t-shirt, offering a peek at lithe muscles and homespun tattoos—both leftovers from his stint in reform school.
It’s a trap. She’ll start trying to make out the Latin inscription curving above his waistband. He’ll glance over just in time to catch her looking. Cue signature smirk.
The clincher is the way his eyes and his face never seem to agree. From the nose down it’s a perfectly charming smile. Venture a little farther north and something else is waiting. A question, a jibe, a dare, an ironic inside joke. When I first met him, it freaked me out the way his gaze had the tendency to linger. I've never had his enthusiasm for eye contact.
Even though he dropped out two years ago, his reputation at St. Anthony’s as a Brooding Bad Boy survives to this day. Thinking about it now, dropping out might have had a lot to do with securing that legacy. Between his vintage ‘59 Chevy and tattooed hands, he more than fits the profile. Most people tend to compare him to James Dean. I tend to point out that he doesn’t own a comb. Early on, my knowledge of his comb-ownership status surprised people.
Back when we went to school together, it took everyone a while to realize we even knew each other. It's not as if we look related, probably because we’re not related. Dan's hair is sandy but he doesn’t really come off as a blond. More like he was supposed to be dark but gave up before he got there. Half Puerto Rican, I've always been a much more forthcoming brunette.
Beyond our differences in height, muscle mass and ethnicity, we just didn't seem to have anything obvious in common. Studious Sophie and Dangerous Dan, the pair of us occupied vastly different spheres. I lugged around a cello case and a backpack stuffed with honors textbooks. Dan rarely brought more than a joint and a black eye to class. Where my academic career has so far been marked by orchestra and honor roll, his time at St. A’s revolved primarily around not attending.
And yet, until the end of my sophomore year, he and I arrived every morning in the same car. Other girls cat-fought over who got a chance in the backseat. I rode shotgun.
“How do you know Daniel Cole?” people would ask the first time they spotted me climbing out of his turquoise panel truck.
“Well,” I would say. “We sort of live in the same house.”
Once word spread, I quickly became an unwilling source for Dan information. Girls asked if he was single, teachers asked why he’d missed class again, stoners asked if he could hook them up. After he dropped out, becoming more myth than man, he became my byline—Sophia Ramos? Guess who her brother is.
The story stuck.
I finish my flashcards for the presentation and tap the edges straight. Hannah and I are supposed to be analyzing Ophelia’s coded use of flowers. Fennel for flattery, rue for regret, daisies for innocence and heartbreak—think, “he loves me, he loves me not”. We don’t have long to finish. It’ll be eight soon and nothing good ever happens here after eight.
Hannah, for her part, has given up on homework entirely. The only flowers she has any interest in analyzing are the ones etched into Dan’s skin. I know about the gardenias on his back—he spent most of his pizza shop wages in junior year getting them filled in at shady tattoo parlors in Detroit. Then there’s the rose blooming on the side of his neck, almost to his jaw—a souvenir from the months he spent in Ohio last fall supposedly doing “farm work”. Just beneath the rose petals, looping cursive spells out the word “Defy”. The first time I saw it I had to stifle a laugh. Yes, we get it; you’re very edgy and rebellious.
Dan's eyes catch mine just as I'm about to roll them. I think he’s gloating. Cocky asshole. It’s always annoyed me to see girls stumbling over themselves for him. Part of me always wants to shake them and shout, “It’s just Dan! He spends as much time playing Xbox as he does raising hell in the city! And when we play, he loses!”
The alarm clock on my phone chirps. It’s a quarter to eight. I don’t want to have to explain to Hannah why I haven’t invited her over all year. Before she moved down south to stay with her biological father, she practically lived here. That was back when it was just Mom and me. Sure, my mom was just as broke and impulsive then, but at least things were quiet. After Hannah moved, it was as if our lives started trading pieces. Her mom got a divorce and a one-year sobriety chip. My mom met Frank. Now that Hannah’s back, her house is the quiet one.
“Hey.” I tap the table to get her attention. “Maybe I could walk with you to the bus stop?”
She looks at me like I’m the single most horrible thing that has ever happened to her.
“My mom’s gonna want to make dinner soon,” I say. “And she’s not expecting company.”
I feel like a bitch for implying Hannah isn’t wanted, but it’s for her own good.
“I can give her a ride home,” Dan says.
For all his obnoxiousness, I appreciate his sense of perception. It helps that my lie was as obvious as her interest in him. Last time my mom cooked dinner, it was Christmas. And our mashed potatoes came out of a box.
Sure, he probably has ulterior motives, but his offer works and Hannah’s suddenly eager to leave. He holds open the door and she flashes me an over-the-shoulder grin. March is almost over but late snow still carpets the roads. Outside, the Chevy draws a deep breath, taking Hannah back to her single-parent-household where nothing hurts anymore. I’m left alone to listen to the clock tick. When the silence breaks, Dan won’t be around to invite me down to play video games.
I’m not sure if it’s fair to say that he and I really “get along”—he still annoys the crap out of me and I usually make a point to pester him back—but we don’t outright hate each other anymore. Early on in our forced co-habitation, Dan and I waged an all out war (it may come as a surprise, but the Honors Student and the Probable Criminal were none too keen to be crammed under the same roof). He found the anonymous blog I used to keep and read it aloud to all his friends. I “accidentally” slipped details of his myriad liaisons to one of the girls he’d been sleeping with. At home, we tampered with shampoos, dyed loads of laundry pink, and ate each other’s food on purpose. Maybe we thought, if we hated each other enough, our parents would break up.
It’s hard now to remember a time when Mom and Frank were ever happy. There were a few weeks, just after they met, when Mom would scrub the table raw and dig out tubes of lipstick she hadn’t worn in years. When Frank first started coming by, he laughed so loud the whole house felt full of him. Approximately five seconds later, they decided it would be a great idea for him and Dan to move in (spoiler alert: it wasn’t). Five seconds after that, Frank took up semi-permanent residence on the couch.
The new-relationship-honeymoon-phase skipped ahead to the screaming-at-each-other-constantly phase. Maybe, just maybe, it isn’t a fantastic idea to move in with someone equally broke, equally drunk, and equally a single parent. Especially if he’s someone you barely know.
But despite Dan and my best efforts, they didn’t break up. Not because they don’t love each other (they don’t), and not that the romance is gone (it is)—they just don’t have the money, or the energy to break out of their inertia. They live together because it’s cheaper; they go to the bar together because it’s convenient.
For a while now, Mom and Frank have lived on a clockwork schedule. Even though they would probably prefer to stay out until last call, they have a habit of pairing their beers with shots of bourbon. It’s unofficial bar policy to cut them off after round number six. With an average of two rounds an hour, they usually get back about…
The minute hand twitches, 8:06.
Angry shouts swell from the end of the block just as I finish loading homework into my bag. The familiar racket warbles into focus the closer they stumble. My breath fogs the windowpane and their shadows stretch long under the stuttering streetlights.
A good head taller than Mom is and at least twice her width, Frank is built like an ex-linebacker with a beer gut, which also happens to be exactly what he is. Mom’s barely taller than I am but so skinny that the seat of her jeans always hangs loose. Peroxide-pale hair brings out the ruddiness of her complexion from too much booze.
“Then what was it you were trying to say?” The high-pitched shriek is Mom.
“Listen, I didn’t ever say you were nothing; you don’t ever listen.” The unintelligible garbage is Frank.
I lock my bedroom door from the inside and tug on a parka before sliding my window open. Once the yelling gets inside the house, I climb the window frame up to the roof. They move through their catalogue of greatest hits: Money (we’re still paying bills on that goddamn get-rich-quick scam you signed up for); Monogamy (do you think I don’t see you talking to other men); and Me. Frank says I don’t respect him, and I should’ve started paying rent when I turned eighteen, like Dan did. Mom says I don’t have to do either. It matters to her that I’m graduating and she throws the word “valedictorian” like a knife. He counters with the word “hypocrite” (you dropped out when that beaner knocked you up!)
My headphones soon blare Arcade Fire. Laika is usually frenetic enough to block out everything but I can still feel the vibrations of feet stomping and doors slamming. This is a bad one.
The sunset bleeds its last light and dusk settles over our suburb. Identical, single-story rambler houses stretch out in a sea of sloping asphalt roofs and vinyl siding. Only the trees interrupt the unrelenting sameness of the grid. I remember trick-or-treating when I was little and peering in through the doorways of strangers' homes. I already knew where the bathroom would be, and the kitchen, and my room if I lived there. Sometimes I saw an exact replica of our floor plan, only in reverse. Like a mirror image. I used to imagine that maybe, in one of those mirror houses, there might live another little girl, and her name would also be Sophie. She would be my twin and my opposite. Identical to me, only inverted. She would have a mole on the right side of her chin and a burn on her left elbow. She would probably love lemonade and musicals but hate peppermints and calculus. She would have a dad but not a mom, and everyone would think she was half Puerto Rican even though she really wasn’t. Maybe she would speak backward too. Mirror-Sophie would tell people “I hate you” years before she told them “I love you”.
Headlights flood the darkening street and I shield my eyes. Only three songs have played. I’m surprised to see Dan back so soon.
“That was fast,” I call out, and I’m more relieved than puzzled. Once upon a time, maybe we did hate each other. More and more, it’s just something we play at. I call him a prick, he calls me a nerd, then I beat him at Soul Calibur.
My headphones come off just in time to hear something shatter inside the house. I wince. “I think that was one of the plates.”
He gives a dry laugh and heaves himself up the porch rail. “What will we eat off now?”
The only dishes we really use in this house are mugs for coffee and glasses for water. When it comes to food, we usually just graze directly from the bag or box.
Dan dangles one leg over the edge of the roof and turns to me. “Do you think the cops’ll end up coming?”
“Sounds like it.” I shrug as the sound of smashing glass rings from below. “Seriously though, it's only been like fifteen minutes. I thought you and Hannah were gonna…you know, hang out.”
“Nah.” Dan smiles, but it's a Dan-Smile. Below the nose it's all nonchalant cheer. In the eyes, I’m not sure.
Saturday…
Mom has a special routine for whenever Frank storms out. Mostly it involves drinking bourbon from a jam jar and clinging to me like I’m a teddy bear. The behavior isn’t new but it’s gotten more aggressive these last years. I've realized it's easier to just put up with it until she passes out.
“Such a good girl, so smart.” She pets my hair hard. “What did I ever do to deserve a kid as good and smart as you?”
I match her cliché for cliché and mumble, “Just lucky I guess.”
She laughs.
“Hey, Aud?” Dan slams a kitchen cabinet. “Is this one of the plates we can't microwave?”
She hates being called “Aud,” which is probably why he does it.
Mom does a little “tut” under her breath before hollering back, louder than she needs to, “Does it have the silver swirls around the edge?”
“No. Um. Like, flowers?”
“Well if it's not silver-looking then it should be fine.”
Mom chews her cheek the whole two-minutes-thirty-seconds the microwave runs, not even bothering to ash her cigarette. Kernels pop in an erratic rhythm. It isn’t lost on me that he doesn’t actually need a plate for this.
“So.” He shovels a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “What’re you watching?”
I'm still trying to figure out which city the Real Housewives are in now when he squeezes onto the couch next to me. Both of the armchairs are empty so I know he's just trying to annoy my mom. I scoop myself some popcorn without asking.
Dan has a way of spreading out wherever he sits. Ankle crossed over knee, one arm stretched across the length of the sofa. The position makes it so you can't lean back all the way without resting on his arm. Thing is, I really don't care. I also can't help but relish the frustrated furrow my mom wears between her brows while she keeps her neck stiff. Frown lines dig in the corners of her mouth as she lights a new menthol off the end of her last one. I reach for the bag again and Dan swats my hand away.
“Hey, gimme some!” I whisper-shout.
“I made it!”
“In the microwave!”
At first I think I’ve won and happily munch popcorn. On screen, two lip-injected women toss drinks in each other’s faces. Then I feel a tickle by my ear. I barely have time to turn before—
Squelch.
“Wet Willy!”
“Asshole!” I wipe the heel of my palm against my ear but there's no drying the wetness inside.
I rebut by throwing popcorn at him. In a flash, most of the bag tumbles down my back, inside my sweater. Dan gives me a sportsmanly clap and crushes kernels between cotton and skin.
My throw pillow hits his face—hard—and bits of popcorn fracture and lodge into the crocheted blanket.
“Oh no, don't you dare!” I shout as Dan seizes me around the waist, tickle-fingers wiggling dangerously near my armpits.
Mirror-Sophie wouldn't be ticklish but everyone would assume she would be!
“I'm not even doing anything.” He grins, fingers waggling. “I'm not even doing anything!”
I try to kick him and squirm out of his grip.
“All right that’s enough!” Mom shouts in a stern mom-tone that says she really means it.
Dan and I freeze but we can't stop laughing little aftershocks. It's too silly that she would wield her dwindling authority in response to a popcorn fight—not when it still isn't safe to walk in the house barefoot for fear of broken glass.
“You two need to cool it,” she grits.
Chuckles push against our tight-pressed lips.
“You're not a kid anymore, Daniel.”
He tries for a serious face and nods. She glares. I experience a thrill of paranoia that he's about to tickle me again and a slapping war ignites. Dan holds her gaze and maintains a respectful gleam, all the while matching me slap for slap. She looks pissed.
“All right that's it. I'm going to bed.” The bottle of Ancient Age clanks as she yanks it off the end table.
We're quiet for a few seconds, the last few laughs still fluttering in our chests. I shake the worst of the popcorn out of my shirt. Onscreen, one of the Housewives sobs before the camera. It’s eerie the way she can’t move most of her face.
Dan nudges me and looks at the coffee table. Mom accidentally left a full jar of whiskey behind.
“Cheers.” He takes a swig before passing it over.
“Cheers.” I take a tentative sip and it makes my throat feel rough. “But don't you fucking dare tickle me again.”
Dan kisses three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
Sunday…
More sun than normal slips through the windows and I spend a long time watching motes of dust glitter in the light. I listen hard but there’s nothing to hear.
Mom must have left for the bar as soon as they opened. Frank is still MIA. While Dan is probably home, he never wakes up before the crack of two. The house feels exquisitely peaceful.
I plug in my rarely used computer speakers and crank the volume as loud as I want. The melody twinkles bright before Lou Reed’s naked vocals take over. Wreckage from the fight still spikes from the beige wall-to-wall in the living room. When I step into slippers and plug in the vacuum, I don't even feel sorry for myself. The house is full of light.
Maybe it's the spring, finally come. Maybe some of the snow has melted from the skylights. Or maybe it's because no one else is here to see the sun. It might be that when this house is so full of people, they throw more shadows and block it out. At least right now I'm getting my fair share.
When the track ends, I press the back button. A few minutes later I do it again. The song repeats on a loop as many times as I want because there's no one else around to care.
“Sunday morning, praise the dawning,” I sing while the vacuum drags patterns into the carpet.
The dishes overflowing from our sink now feel conquerable, so I wring out our slimy, disintegrating sponge under a boiling tap. When I shift yesterday’s coffee cups and bulging, dripping filters, I notice three cellophane-wrapped peppermints. Dan sometimes nicks a few of the candies from work at the pizza place and leaves them like Easter Eggs for me to find. I pop one into my mouth and pocket the rest, turning the mint over with my tongue as I scrub an anonymous crust off one of our remaining plates.
Before too long the house looks almost tidy. The fake-wood paneling has holes I can’t fix and there are stains on the linoleum older than I am, but bright like this, none of it seems so bad.
Eventually I let the album finish and go quiet. Once I'm done making my bed, I lie back atop the blankets and close my eyes even though I haven’t shut my door. The red swirl of the peppermint always dissolves faster than the white, leaving a sharp groove to carefully tongue. Only faintly do I notice footsteps creaking on the stairs.
“G'morning,” Dan yawns, lolling in my doorway.
I'm not sure why, but the gesture doesn’t seem like him.
“Good afternoon.” I smirk back and my candy clacks against my teeth.
At this moment, he looks almost properly blond. And milder than normal. The chord usually tugged so tight inside him, the one that's sensitive and quick to note any change in atmosphere, might have gone untuned. He just stands there, yawning against my doorframe. No veiled meaning in his eyes, no subtle joke waiting on his lips.
Maybe he's feeling the same relief I am. The rare delight of a sundrenched house populated only by ourselves.
The coffeepot gurgles from the kitchen while Dan hums to himself. “So you're officially on spring break now right?”
“Tomorrow,” I call back.
“Well.” He returns with a mug of coffee for me. “Today is Sunday so it’s basically started.”
“No.” I blow on my coffee. “Sunday is always Sunday but Monday isn't always spring break.”
Dan doesn't quip back, just gives a “good point” sort of shrug and returns to the kitchen. I think I hear him tying the overflowing garbage bags.
“Well since you don't have school,” he calls from the other room, “maybe we could, like, hang out.”
“Yeah,” I say, a little surprised. “Sure.”
Hanging out with Dan has always just been a side effect of us living together. We’ve never gone out of our way to meet up outside the house before.
“I know some bars we could get into,” he says. “Do you know how to play pool?”
“Uh, no. Not really.”
“I can teach you.”
“Yeah okay. That sounds cool.”
There's a long enough pause that I assume the conversation's over.
“Sunday morning, and I'm falling…”
I hear him singing absently to himself. His voice has rough edges but it’s perfectly in tune.
“I woke up with that song stuck in my head,” he says.
“I bet you did.”
I laugh then pull myself out of bed to help him carry the trash bags outside. Neither of us can get a good hold on them lest some spike of broken something pierces through. The wall clock got smashed last night. So did the wobbly chair. I try to think of each fight like an earthquake—a release of pressure that will make things calmer for a while. I try not to think about how, sometimes, earthquakes cause tsunamis.
Back in the kitchen, I open the freezer to something amazing: the ice tray is full. I guess it makes sense; Frank hasn't been home and Mom's been jar-drinking. Either way I’m excited by the simple luxury.
Twisting the tray from side to side breaks the ice with a satisfying crack. I've almost gone so far as to pour water into my glass before I stop. Memories from last night surface and I recall sitting up in bed picking popcorn out of my bra.
Dan is wearing elastic-waist pajamas. I can see the edge of his boxer-briefs peeking out of the top but their waistline is much the same scenario. Everything has been so relaxed today. He's perfectly content—humming to himself!—while he finishes scrubbing the sink. He would never see it coming.
I bite another peppermint out of plastic and pad softly across the linoleum, careful not to make a sound. The glass of ice waits poised in my hand. He finishes rinsing the horrible sponge. In one fell swoop I wrench back a handful of pajama-and-boxer and let loose a frozen torrent.
Dan jumps, surprised, but he’s still reacting more to the grabbing than anything. While he knows something has happened, he doesn't yet know what.
I can't contain my devious grin while he searches my face. Then—there it is. A yelp, a jump, a shake. Cube after freezing cube tumbles from his pant legs. More yet are trapped inside his underwear. He hops from foot to foot and tries to push them out. Then he changes strategy.
“You little—”
“No!” I squeal, giggling wildly, and tear out of the kitchen.
I circle the table and he pauses just across its diameter. I try to feint left. He jerks then corrects his course and lunges. I backtrack.
We're stuck in a dead heat. A draw. One of us will have to make a break for it.
Throwing caution into the wind, I take off away from the table and leap over the couch. He struggles to follow my maneuver. Probably something to do with the glassful of ice melting in his underwear. I can't stop shrieking like a child and waving my hands like an idiot. If I don't make it to my room, he's going to tickle the fuck out of me.
My heart leaps as I crash through my door and tug it closed behind me. It stops short of snapping shut. One tattooed arm pries it open.
I jump back and seize a pillow from my bed like a shield. “No!”
Then the tickle-fingers. Just the sight of them breaks something inside me and I start laughing so hard I can’t breathe. Once, twice, three times I whack him with my pillow. He yanks it away and I trip backward onto my bed.
We land hard and he quickly takes both the figurative and literal upper hand. One knee wedges between my legs to keep me from kicking. His hands snatch my wrists in turn, pinning them above my head.
Dead heat. Stalemate. My armpits are terribly exposed but he can't tickle me as long as he's holding me down. My chest rises and falls as fast as my heartbeat. Desperate laughs push through my tight-pressed lips.
This close, his face a spare few inches from mine, I notice a field of freckles for the very first time. Light, almost invisible, they dust his nose and cheeks. Freckles don't seem like something Dan should have.
The lunatic laughter dies in my throat but my chest still rises and falls. Partially dissolved peppermint slides to the back of my molars. A muscle in his jaw works. Green eyes dart rapidly between mine, thinking. About what, I’m not sure.
When we landed, his chest pressed down against mine. Now I feel his thin, worn sleeping t-shirt against my thin, worn sleeping t-shirt. No bra in between. On either side, only skin.
His hands, coiled around my wrists. My breasts, curving against his chest. Our lips, inches apart. This is starting to look like…something.
Our eyes stay locked. The longer we remain like this, the more the next movement matters. The stakes are shooting up. Spicy candy burns my tongue, but I will myself not to suck it. Maybe, if I could move, I could just tickle him back. But that’s not what Mirror-Sophie would do…
His knee moves a fraction, hardly anything at all. Or maybe I imagined it. A rush of heat flows between my legs—so strong and so sudden I'm sure he could feel it. The fabric is so thin it might as well be bare skin. Goosebumps erupt down my arms. My nipples pull to points against him. He must feel them too.
I've been staring into his eyes so long…however long this has been—an infinity— and I mark their swift change. Something has happened there. Some choice, some determination…
Some noise rises from my throat. I'm not even sure if it was a sound or just a feeling, but I sense how it changed me. The air between us smells like peppermint. The space between us starts to close.
A distant creak.
My heart stops.
The front door rattles open.
Terror comes faster and more fearsome than a thousand ice cubes. Dan's fingers vanish from around my wrists. His knee retreats from between my thighs.
“Audrey! Audrey!” Frank hollers from the front room.
The weight of Dan’s body disappears. When he stands, his eyes are like windows after sunset—made into mirrors by the darkness on the other side.
“Audrey!”
Dan closes the door softly behind him. I swallow my mint like a pill. My every hair that’ve so long stood on end, so attuned to every sensation, now have nothing left to feel. All that remains is a warm impression on the sheets. It cools.