Love and Other Words
Page 14

“You know you’re too young to date,” Dad said.
My head shot up, eyes wide in horror. “Dad!”
He laughed. “Just making sure you understand the rules.”
Blinking back down to my food, I mumbled, “Don’t be gross. I just like it up there, okay?”
My dad wasn’t a big smiler, not one of those people you think of and immediately picture with a big grin on his face, but right now, when I looked back up, he was smiling. Really smiling.
“Of course we can go to the house, Macy.”
We drove up early Saturday morning, the first day of my spring break. There were two things Dad wanted to check off the list this week, including items forty-four and fifty-three: planting a tree that I could watch grow for many years, and teaching me to chop firewood.
Before I could run off into my book wonderland, Dad pulled a tiny sapling from the back of the car and hauled it into the side yard.
“Grab the shovel from the back,” he said, kneeling to cut the plastic container away from the apple tree using a razor blade. “Bring the work gloves.”
In some ways I always assumed I was my mother’s child: I liked the color and clutter of our Berkeley house. I liked lively music and warm days, and danced when I washed dishes. But up at the cabin, I realized I was my dad’s kid, too. In the chill of the March wind snaking through the trees, we dug a deep pit in easy silence, communicating with the point of a finger or the tilt of a chin. When we’d finished, and a proud little Gravenstein tree was firmly planted in our side yard, instead of enthusiastically wrapping his arms around me and gushing his love in my ear, Dad cupped my face and bent, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“Good work, min lille blomst.” He smiled down at me. “I’m going to town for groceries.”
With this permission, I took off. My shoes pounded on the ground as I moved in a straight path from the end of our driveway to the top of Elliot’s. The doorbell rang throughout the house, carrying back to me from the open windows overhead. A loud bark reached my ears, followed by the clumsy scratch of a dog’s nails against wooden floors.
“Shut it, Darcy,” a sleepy voice said, and the dog fell silent, only to release a few small apologetic whines.
It occurred to me that in the nearly six months we’d had the cabin, I hadn’t been inside Elliot’s house. Miss Dina had invited us, of course, but Dad seemed to feel it was wrong to intrude. I think he also liked the solitude of our house on the weekends – Elliot’s presence excepted, of course. Dad liked not having to come out of his shell.
I took a step back, nerves rising, when the door opened and a yawning, shaggy-haired Andreas stood in front of me.
The second-oldest Petropoulos brother had clearly just climbed out of bed – messy brown hair, sleep lines on his face, no shirt, and basketball shorts that defied gravity by barely clinging low on his hips. He had the kind of body I hadn’t been entirely sure until that moment actually existed.
Is this what Elliot would look like in a couple of years? My mind could barely handle the idea.
“Hey, Macy,” he said. It sounded like a growl, like a sin. He stood back, holding open the door and waiting for me to follow. “You coming in or not?”
I willed my eyebrows to inch back down my forehead. “Oh, sure.”
It did smell like cookies inside. Cookies and boy. Andreas smiled and lazily scratched his stomach. “You guys are up for the weekend?”
I nodded and his smile widened. “And very talkative, I see.”
“Sorry,” I said, and then stood there, arms at my sides, fingers pulling at the hem of my shorts, still not sure what to say. “Is Elliot home?”
“I’ll grab him.” Andreas grinned and walked toward the staircase. “Hey, Ell! Your girlfriend is here!” His voice echoed in the wooden entryway as my body exploded into a scorching blush.
Before I could answer, there was the sound of feet pounding on the floor above us.
“You’re such a douche!” Elliot said, barreling down the stairs and into his brother. Andreas grunted with the blow and grabbed Elliot, putting him in a headlock. Andreas was taller and pretty muscular, but Elliot seemed to have the desire to avoid public humiliation on his side.
The two boys wrestled, came dangerously close to knocking over a lamp, said a bunch of words I wasn’t even supposed to think, and then finally broke apart, panting.
“Sorry,” Elliot said to me, still glaring at Andreas. He adjusted his glasses and straightened his clothes. “My brother thinks he’s funny and apparently can’t dress himself.” He motioned to Andreas’s bare chest.
Andreas messed up Elliot’s hair even more and rolled his eyes. “It’s barely noon, prick.”
“I think Mom should have you tested for narcolepsy.”
With a dull punch to Elliot’s shoulder, Andreas turned toward the stairs. “I’m heading to Amie’s. Nice seeing you, Macy.”
“You, too,” I said lamely.
Andreas winked over his shoulder. “Oh, and Elliot?” he called.
“Yeah?”
“Door open.”
His booming laugh filled the upstairs hall before finally disappearing behind the click of a closed door.
Elliot started toward the stairs but then stopped, turning around to frown at me. “Let’s go to your house.”
“You don’t want to show me around?”
With a groan, he turned and pointed around us. “Living room, dining room, kitchen through there.” He pivoted in place, indicating each room with a jab of his index finger. He walked up the stairs and I followed him as he mumbled, “Stairs,” and “Hallway,” and “Bathroom,” and “Parents’ room,” and a list of other monotone labels until we stood in front of a closed white door with a periodic table taped to it.
“This one’s mine.”
“Wow, that’s… expected,” I said with a laugh. I was so happy to see his space, I felt a little dizzy.
“I didn’t put that there, Andreas did.” His voice took on an edge of defensiveness, as if he could only stand to be seen as ninety-eight percent nerd.
“But you haven’t taken it down,” I pointed out.
“It’s a good poster. He got it at a science fair.” He turned to me and shrugged, dropping his eyes. “It would be a waste to get rid of it, and he’d give me endless crap if I put it inside my room.”
He opened the door and said nothing, only stepping back to let me move past him into his bedroom. Anxiety and thrill hit me in a blast: I was entering a boy’s bedroom.
I was entering Elliot’s bedroom.
It was sparse and immaculate: bed made, only a few dirty laundry items in a basket in the corner, drawers of his dresser neatly closed. The only disorder was in a pile of books stacked on his desk, and a box of books in the corner.
I sensed Elliot’s tense presence behind me, could hear the jerky cadence of his breathing. I knew he wanted to get away from the chaos of his house and into the solitude of the closet, but I couldn’t tear myself away. Behind his desk was a bulletin board, with a few ribbons pinned there, a photograph, and a postcard with a picture of Maui.
Moving closer, I leaned in, studying.
“Just some science fairs,” he mumbled behind me, explaining the ribbons.
First place in his category at the Sonoma County science fair, three years in a row.