“Dude.” Danny Potter shoots the ball into my gut, and I catch it right there in my stomach. “Where’s your head?”
“I was just thinking about that poor chick.”
Ricky James, a small, skinny dude from San Ramos, snatches the ball and starts bouncing it in front of my face, daring me to snatch it back.
“Dude, that chick is one crazy bitch.” Ricky laughs as he dances around me out of breath. “Coach found her clothes all over the track. Dennis said he heard her barking like a dog when he got here.”
Shit. Dennis is prone to exaggeration. Everybody knows that.
“She was running naked around the field like some nut,” he continues while inching his way toward me, and I swipe the ball back with an aggressive snatch.
“She’s not a nut,” I gruff the words out with assertion. “I’m sure there’s a good reason for what happened. She probably had a bee chasing her, and she’s allergic. People do weird shit like that around bees all the time. I know this for a fact because my little sister just so happens to have a major freak out every time a bee buzzes past her. You’d think it were going to set her on fire the way she loses it.” I give a quick glimpse to the clock on the wall.
Jilly has Estella and Ramona watching over her until noon. Dad spent last night who knows where. Hell, we never know where. And come noon, I need to get my ass home so that Jilly isn’t left alone. She’s twelve, which technically is plenty old enough to be left alone, but she doesn’t like it, and I don’t really care for her all alone in that big house either.
Practice goes off without a hitch. We’re nothing but sweat, aching bones, and muscles once Coach is through with us.
Until we bring home a win this season, Coach is going to make our lives a living hell. I can’t help but think that’s exactly what Jennifer Barkly’s life will be on Monday.
* * *
I swing by Joel’s on the way home and find him hanging out with Russell, shooting some hoops. Van Halen blares from the boombox set up on the wall.
“What’s up?” I hop over, steal the ball from Russ, and Joel swipes it away from me.
“That’s why we’re losing, dude. Beef up your defense, would you?” Joel shoots the ball right into my gut. I’ve known Joel and Russell for as long as I can remember. For a long time, I was convinced they were blood relations since they look that much alike.
“So, what’s up with that chick?” I cup my hand over my eye in an effort to keep the sun out, but, in truth, I want to come across as casual, not showing the panic that sprang up in me when I saw her like that.
Joel gives a reflexive grimace. “Mel says she’s going through some existential stuff. She didn’t think anyone was on the field. Forget you saw her. In fact, tell whoever was with you to forget it, too.”
“Are you kidding?” I inch back a notch. “She exposed herself to the entire basketball team. The only place most of those guys see a half-naked girl running loose is in their wet dreams. Face it, poor Jennifer Barkly just made a name for herself, and if you want to know, they’re calling her Tits.”
“What a mess.” Russell takes the ball from me. “Heather is freaking out. Do not, and I repeat, do not give this chick a hard time. She feels like she just ruined her entire life.”
“Dude, she sort of did.” Joel takes a seat on the porch, and we join him.
“I won’t say a word to her.” Will I? A part of me wants to. A part of me wants to reach out and make sure she’s okay. “Maybe I should call her.”
“No,” they both bark at once.
“Dude.” Joel closes his eyes and bends his head back a moment. “Mel says she’s literally dying of embarrassment. This isn’t like her. And without putting my neck on the chopping block—you’re the last person she wants to talk to about this.”
“She’s not into me, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I’m not sure why I spit it out so fast.
Joel and Russell exchange a quick glance.
“Hey, there’s a first time for everything,” I tease. “Seriously, though, I talked to her last night. She’s into Danny. He was there this morning. That probably killed her.”
“Probably.” Joel glowers at me a moment without looking too convinced.
“Look”—Russell groans as if he’s wounded—“stay away from this girl, would you? Find another conquest to notch up on your bedpost. She’s Heather’s best friend.”
“Mel’s, too,” Joel growls.
“Why do I get the feeling I’ve stumbled upon two self-appointed big brothers?”
“Because that’s what we’re going to be.” Joel sheds his signature shit-eating grin. “Unlike you, we value our very monogamous relationships. I like the way things are going with Mel, and the last thing I need is you taking down her best friend and rocking the shit out of my boat. Set your dick compass in another direction. Jennifer Barkly isn’t up for grabs.”
Russell slaps me five for no reason. “You’ve got enough sharks in miniskirts circling your tank. I’ve seen the pickings. You can take them down ten at a time if you like. Keep up the good work, man. You’re a real inspiration.”
I frown at him a moment. “‘A real inspiration’? You’re laying it on a little thick.” Jennifer and those day-glow green eyes of hers run through my mind. There was something about her that made me want to protect her last night, and whatever that feeling was came back this morning twenty times as hard. “Yeah, I’ll steer clear.” My gut cinches like maybe I’m not telling the truth. “I’ve got enough to deal with on my plate already.” Jilly flashes through my mind, and I check my dive watch. “I’d better hit the road. See you fools later.”
I head for the street with a thousand thoughts sailing through my mind. Conquests. Girls circling my tank, my bed. All the bullshit that Tess and Rachel have tossed my way over the last few months. Back in October things got out of hand. Relationships were overlapping, literally, three-ways were being openly discussed, promised, and all I could think was how in the hell did I turn into my father?
“Hey.” Russell comes up just as I’m about to hop into my car and slaps his hand over my shoulder. I glance back to find Joel already gone. “What’s going on? You look a little lost. Shaken.”
“Practice sucked me dry. I’m tired. I need a shower and my bed.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” My stomach clenches because I think I just shed another lie.
“So, what’s up with you and those chicks?” He folds his arms over his chest, shifting just enough to block the sun from my eyes. “You make a decision?”
“I don’t know how to make a decision.” Last fall, I confided to Russ that I was sick of all the girl drama, and he suggested I pair the female offerings down to one. Either Tess or Rachel would make sense, since I’m unable to shake them, and, believe me, I’ve tried. “I can’t figure out which one I want.” A cheesy grin glides over my face because that’s the God’s honest truth. Tess is wildly manipulative, and Rachel has a way of anchoring herself in the pit of my stomach like a briar patch that’s almost too dangerous to get rid of. Russ thinks they bring out the worst in one another, and I’m pretty sure it’s true. They don’t deserve this three-way bullshit either.
His eyes glint in the sun, and for a second, I think he’s shooting me a dirty look. Guys like Russ used to look up to me, and, now, I feel like some social pariah for having a good time.
“Which one can you live without?”
Live without. The thought of Tess and Rachel banished from my bedroom, from my life feels like a welcome relief.
“Good question.” I think on it for a moment. Tess is sweet as a rattlesnake, and Rachel is subtle as a bull getting its tail chopped off. The thought of permanently linking myself to one—being “monogamous” as Joel put it—makes me squirm a bit. “I guess I could take or leave either.”
“Then that’s your answer.”
“What is?” I’ll admit, there’s a twinge of relief knowing that Russell has solved a dilemma that’s
been vexing me for months. It’s like a bandage I’ve been staring at, too chicken to remove, and Russell, here, just ripped it off while I wasn’t looking. “Which one, dude?” In truth, I like the idea of having one girl to pour all of my attention out on—one chick that isn’t going to parade around in every capacity just hoping that I’ll pay attention to her the most. “Don’t keep me in the dark. The suspense is killing me.”
“Neither.” He winces as if baffled by how clueless I’ve become.
“Neither isn’t going to fly. They’re waiting for an answer. I told them I’d figure it out.”
“Dude.” Russell slaps me over the arm as if waking me from a bad dream, and I wish he would. “It’s neither. You know these chicks. You’ve slept with these chicks. If you can live without them, then neither of them is the one for you. When I got to know Heather, I knew she was special. All I wanted to do was be with her all the time, and I’m not talking about sleeping with her. That’s nice, but it came much, much later. Your problem is you’ve been engineering relationships backward your entire life. And not to put down Tess or Rachel, because if you do get serious with one or the other, I don’t want things to get weird between us, but you seem to attract a certain kind of girl.” He shakes his head as if wordlessly finishing his sentence.
“I get it.” I’m not an idiot. I’ve known this for a while. Okay, so I didn’t realize it at first. Seventh grade and up, I literally believed I had the cream of the crop, and, based on looks alone, that’s true for the most part, but, sadly, for a majority of these girls, beauty only runs skin deep. I’d hate for Jilly to act the way those girls do toward other people, and I’d go fucking nuts if Jilly was doing things with guys that these girls do to me—heck, that I do to them. The thought literally makes my stomach turn. I could vomit on my shoes if I think on it too long. “I’ll figure things out.”
“You always do.” Russell steps into the street, glaring at me, giving me that same look of pity he offered before Christmas when the basketball team lost every game. He’s feeling sorry for me, and for once I want to join in on the pity party.
I jump into my ’Vette, start the engine, and roll down the window. “So, that’s how you knew? You didn’t want to be apart?”
“That’s how I knew, dude.” He mock shoots me. “In fact, I’m headed in to call her right now.” Russ lets out a howl as he heads into the house. “We can’t all be like you, dude. Some of us have beating hearts.”
Beating hearts. I think on this on the drive home. Engineering relationships backward. I slept with both Tess and Rachel within hours of knowing them, both at some boozed-up party, both wrapping their legs around me like an offering.
Jennifer Barkly runs through my mind, partially naked, but that’s just from what I remember a few hours ago. I’m not trying to be a pervert—although, I would have jumped her bones last night if she let me. But after speaking with her, she seemed sweet. Something about her reminded me a little too much of Jilly.
Russell and Joel are right.
I should probably stay the hell away.
* * *
Fox Central, as my dad likes to call it, is dark and cold. The entire front of the house, if you can label this ten-thousand square foot mega structure something so architecturally simple, is lined in dark cherry, the walls, the floors, the ceiling—Jilly says it’s like being trapped in a coffin. The back of the house, the kitchen, the sunroom, the game room—they, however, are miraculously robed in light. Dad’s girlfriend at the time had something to do with this dismal coffin-like décor—I believe she was one of the many Karens. He dated more than three, although that entire period of my childhood felt like a blur. Regardless, one of the Karens undertook this monolithic funeral home-inspired wonder and began renovations. She said a successful music mogul like my father deserved to have the ritziest home that money could buy. And if by “ritzy” she meant gaudy, then she hit the hot pink nail on the head. In addition to lining us in glorified cedar, she had excessively large mural-sized paintings commissioned that take up the entire span of a wall, one of Jilly as a blonde toddler in pigtails and one of me at eleven. It’s eerie walking in every day, seeing a blown-up version of your chubby childhood self. She had my old terrier included in my portrait, and as far as I see it, that’s the only perk. I still give old Buddy a nod as I pass him in the entryway.
“Jilly!” I shout as I make my way to the kitchen and find her planted at the counter with a journal she slaps shut the second I arrive. She’s blonde with delicate pretty features that most likely mimic her mother’s—that is, if we knew her. I’m more of a mirror image of my father. I’ve met my own mother on a few sparse and emotionally cold occasions, and I can pass as her kid if she wanted to claim me. “What’s up?”
“You left me alone!” Jilly snarls. Her voice is hard, but I can’t tell if she’s gearing up for another one of her fits or not. Jilly has been known to delve into grand orchestrated tantrums that can make even the most seasoned tantrum veteran twitch with envy. She specializes in them.
The clock on the microwave reads just 12:03, and yet, there’s not another soul in the kitchen. “Estella’s not here? How about Ramona?”
“Ramona never showed up.” She scrawls her pen hard over the surface of her composition notebook. “She parties on New Year’s Eve, remember? She told us that yesterday. Estella had to take care of her mom,” she grunts it out as if it were the vilest deed. Jilly is abundant in many things; sympathy isn’t one of them. “She left an hour ago.”
“Crap. I’m sorry.” I head over to give her a hug, and she shirks me off. Usually, Jilly is all about the affection, but once she’s pissed, you’ve got a tiger by the tail. And, lately, it seems I’ve got a tiger by the tail more times than not.
“Estella said she can’t come in until her mom is dead,” she spits the words out with such venom my eyes widen. It’s not often Jilly shocks me, but as of late she’s been able to jar me time and time again. It scares me on some level. I always thought I was enough for Jilly, and, now, I’m not so sure. I wish to God one of us had a mother who was interested in actually filling the position. “She hates me. She hired someone to come over and sit on me once school starts back up. She says she’ll read me bedtimes stories like I’m some itty bitty baby.” Sit on me is Jilly’s way of saying babysit. There are few things she loathes more than being treated like a baby, and yet, ironically, she seems to enjoy playing the part to a T.
“You’re not a baby.” She is, but this isn’t the time to fill her in on this hard truth. It’s not her chronological age. It’s her emotional state of being I’m more concerned with. For so long, our endless stream of housekeepers, babysitters, tutors, didn’t really bother me, but for some reason, Jilly can’t seem to handle this parade of hired hands. She wants more of me, more of Dad. Heck, she wants a female influence in her life that sticks around longer than ten minutes.
“Hey, how about I bring Tess and Rachel over this afternoon? We can all watch a movie together? I’ll even take you to the video store. Jilly’s choice.”
“Tess and Rachel are gutter skanks.” Her tiny lips curl, and she couldn’t have knocked the wind out of me more if she socked me in the gut. That’s essentially what Russ said about a half hour ago.
“Whoa.” I try to act casual as I pull the milk from the fridge. “Don’t talk like that.”
“It’s true. They are. Ramona says you’re addicted to tramps just like your daddy.”
“Ramona’s about to get fired.” Not that I would, even if I had the authority. Ramona is our loudmouth, boisterous, redheaded, hell-on-wheels housekeeper that’s been more like family to Jilly and me than anyone we’re actually related to—our dad withstanding.
The back door swoops open and in walks this mirrored, older, much more storied version of myself.
“Daddy!” Jilly hops over and gives him a sloppy hug and kiss. I love that she is still very much a little girl, still doling out the hugs, the smacks on the cheek whenever she feels lik
e it. In a lot of ways, it feels as if it’s just Jilly and me against the world. I guess what I’m most afraid of is that we’ll eventually drift apart, or worse yet, that she’ll turn into a female version of my father or myself.
“Where were you?” Her voices pitches, and for a second, I think she might break down and cry. “Are you staying home? Can we go to the beach today? I want to go to the beach.”
“I was at Gina’s.” Dad shoots me that look that says what gives with the interrogation. He’s too clueless to pick up on the fact Jilly actually craves him. “I’ve got an early dinner I need to get ready for. It’s clear out in Malibu, so don’t wait up.”
“We never do.” I salute him with my milk.
“What about the beach?” Jill whines in that screechy voice that seems to have sprung from out of nowhere as of late. She is pretty tenacious about getting her way. In fact, I predict I’ll be at Lawrence Beach freezing my ass off before the sun sets tonight.
“It’s too cold for the beach.” Dad helps himself to a plate of cookies Estella set out. She bakes them herself a couple of times a week and brings in a dozen or so to share. If it weren’t for Estella, Jilly and I would be living solely off Pop-Tarts.
“We can bring jackets.” Jilly hops in front of him as he’s about to reach for another homemade treat. “No fair. Other dads do things with their kids, and all I ever get to do is stay home!”
“Do something with your brother. I’m the one who keeps a roof over your head. What’s cooking?” He comes over and slaps me five. “You have fun last night?”
“I had fun.” I technically didn’t have fun—at least not the fun he’s implying. My father couldn’t care less that I played football all three years at Glen, or that I’ve been on the basketball team an equal amount of time. He’s never once been to any of my games. In his eyes, I’m a great success because I manage to keep a steady stream of girls on a revolving door basis. Each time I bring a new one home for him to meet, I can see the pride bubbling up in him like some toxic testosterone stew. Sometimes, it feels as if the only time I can make my father proud is by mimicking him in every single way. I wonder how he’d feel if Jilly did that? Would he even care?