The Boy Most Likely To

It would be, except that a mile’s a hell of a long way. The pier’s still as distant as a mirage and I’m gasping for breath, wanting to collapse in the sand.

I’m seven-fuckin’-teen, for God’s sake. The prime of my life. The height of my physical prowess. The golden age I look back on one day when I’m boring my own kids. But I can’t run like the wind. I can’t run like the breeze. Patsy could run faster, without needing an oxygen tank afterward. I slump down in the sand, falling first to my knees, then rolling to collapse onto my back, hand over my eyes against the early morning light, sucking in air like it’s filtered through nicotine.

Gotta lose the cigarettes.

“Need mouth to mouth?” asks a female voice.

Damn, I didn’t know there was anyone on the beach, much less someone close . . . Alice. How long has she been watching me? I edge my hand away from my eyes.

Ah, another bikini. Thank you, Jesus. If I’m gonna die of shame, at least I’ll die happy. This is one of those Bond-girl types, dark green with a lime green zipper down the front, a little belt cinching in the bottom, about three fingers below where her waist swoops in before her hips fan out. My fingers twitch, will of their own. I shove my fists in my pockets. “Definitely,” I gasp. “I need mouth to mouth. Right now.”

“If you can talk, I think you’ll survive.”

I lick my dry lips. “Don’t think I’m ready for the triathlon, Alice.”

She does an unexpected thing, lying down next to me on her side, tilting toward me, sudden smile, curvy as the rest of her.

“At least you’ve got your running shoes on.” She looks down at my feet. “No, you don’t even, do you? Who jogs barefoot?” Her toes tangle with mine for a second, then move away. She looks down at the sand, not at me, draws a squiggly line between us.

“It matters?”

“Traction, honey,” Alice says.

“I thought that was only when you’d broken a leg. Navy Seals do it. So I’ve heard.”

I wait for her to make fun of that, but instead she smiles a little more, almost undetectably, unless you’re looking hard at her lips, which I may be doing – says, “Maybe put off the BUDs challenge until you’ve built up more . . . stamina.”

There are so many ways I could answer that.

She moves closer; smells like I’ve always thought Hawaii would, green and sweet, earthy, sun and sea mixed together, smoky warm. Her greenish gray eyes, flecks of gold too –

“You’ve only got one dimple,” she says.

“That a drawback? I had two, but I misplaced one after a particularly hard night.”

She gives my shoulder a shove. “You joke about everything.”

“Everything is pretty funny,” I say, trying to sit up but sinking back, my back groaning. “If you look at it the right way.”

“How do you know you’re looking at it the right way?” Alice’s head’s lowered, she’s still circling an index finger in the sand, only inches from brushing her knuckles past my stomach. The morning air is still and calm – no sound of the waves, even.

“If it’s funny,” I wheeze, “you’re looking at it the right way.”

“Yo, Aleece!” I look up and there’s that douche-canoe, her boyfriend, Brad, looming large, big shoulders muscling out the sun.

“Brad.” She’s up, brushing sand from her swimsuit. He pats her on the butt, looking at me in this my territory way.

Dick.

“You’re late. Brad, Tim. Tim, Brad.”

“Yo, Tim.” Brad, man of few, and strictly one-syllable, words. One of those guys built like a linebacker but with a little kid face, all rosy cheeks and twinkly eyes. To compensate, I guess, he has a scruffy, barely there beard.

“So, Ally-pals,” he says to Alice.

Ally-pals?

“Ready?”

“I’ve been ready for a while. You’re the one who’s late,” Alice says, sharply.

Atta girl.

She turns to me, running her hands through her hair, flipping it back from her face. “I’m training for the five K – Brad’s timing me.”

“You’re a runner? How did I not know that?”

She opens her mouth, like why on earth would I know anything whatsoever about her, but then looks down, tightens the notch on the belt of her bikini bottom. Which brings my attention back to her stomach, the belly ring, and I . . .

Roll over onto my stomach.

Brad clears his throat, arms folded, chin jutting. Got it, caveman.

“I won’t hold you up,” I add. Alice shoots Brad an unreadable look, drops down on her knees, bending over me again, her breath biting sweet as peppermint candy. “Sneakers next time, Tim.”

I’m panting, hands on knees, at the end of my first sprint. Sweat slides into my eyes, and I brush my hair back, try to corral what isn’t in my ponytail behind my ears.

Brad uncaps the water bottle, hands it to me, stooping low to squint at my face. Then he says in a low voice, “You wanna tell me what that was about?” He jerks his thumb toward the distant figure of Tim, still collapsed on the sand, head on his folded arms.

“What? Tim? He’s my kid brother’s friend. We were talking.”

He rubs his chin. “I dunno, Ally. That’s all it was?”

Two more sips of water, then I pour some into my hand, rub it over my face.

Tim’s standing up now, shielding his eyes, looking toward us – then the other way down the beach. Now he’s sprinting in that direction, no stretching out, no slow jog to start, right into a flat-out run. Gah.

“Ally?”

“Of course that’s all it was.”

Chapter Seven

Sam’s Club is no stranger to Garrett family meltdowns. Harry always loses it in the toy aisle, George is extremely sensitive about our ice cream choices, Patsy gets overtired and screeches. This time, though, the meltdown is all mine.

“I think you’re taking this waaay too seriously,” Joel says, holding up both palms in that whoa, you overemotional woman way that makes me furious.

I shake the papers at him. “It says two red, one-inch binders. Red. One-inch. I send you off to do that one simple thing. These are blue. Two-inch.”

“So what?” Joel scratches the back of his neck, checking out a girl who’s smiling at him while daintily placing huge packs of glitter glue in her cart.

“So, the school list says red. We get red. That’s what lists are for. So people get things right.”

“Al, I don’t think this is about school supplies. You’re scaring Patsy. You’re scaring me.”

“Good,” I snap.

Patsy points at me. “Bad.” She’s scowling from her perch in the shopping cart.

“Not you, honey. You, Joel. Maybe you need scaring, or some reminder of what’s really going on. Because you’re not around – not all the time. You don’t see how close everything is to – to –”

“That’s what this is about.” My brother settles back against a wall of paper towels, tilts his chin. “Me not being around all the time. That you are.”

“No,” I say. “Not that at all. What do I care if you’re moving in with your girlfriend and starting your training at the police academy when everything is up in the air? So what? Whatever.”

Joel sighs, reaches over, and plucks a handful of chocolate chip cookies off a free sample tray. “Al, I’m twenty-two. Out of college. I need to get on with it. Gisele and I have been seeing each other for a while. I want to find out where that goes. I don’t want to be living above our garage for the rest of my life. Not too functional.”

“Since when has that mattered?” I say, moving away from Patsy, who’s trying to yank down the top of my shirt, still scowling.

“Uh, since I spent my twenty-second birthday at the hospital the night Dad was hit. I love our family, Al. I’d do anything for any of us, even you. But everything – my life – it can’t stop.”

Everything has done anything but stop – as Joel should know. It’s accelerated to warp speed. Before that, this summer, for me, there were a few classes, a few hours of work at the hospital rehab center, maybe covering at the store, but other than that it was the beach and Brad and my favorite time of year. Sand and salt and ice-cream cones.

Now it’s almost Labor Day and things – classes, sports, afterschool stuff – will be picking up – for everyone. Dad will be recovering for who knows how much longer, Mom pregnant, Jase’s football schedule, band for Andy and Duff – we’ll need to figure out more babysitting and my actual own life is –

Deep breath. I lower my shoulders, which are practically grazing my earlobes.

Joel tosses a 500-pack box of Slim Jims into the cart. I snatch them out and shove them back on the shelf. “Do you even know what’s in those?”

“Is this about you not liking Gisele?”

“I like Gisele fine,” I say.

Can’t stand Gisele.

Last time she came by, she had Joel pumping up her bicycle tires while she stood there looking all Parisian in a striped blue-and-white dress and a red scarf, fluttering her hands. But I know better than to say that. He’s moving in with her. That should be the kiss of death for both of them.

“Sure you do. Brad’s no prize, you know.” Joel hands Patsy a chocolate chip cookie, which she immediately smooshes all over her face and into her hair, wiping the last of the chocolate across her pink shirt for good measure.

“Brad’s on his way out,” I say, leafing through the school supply lists, mentally crossing things off. Harry – still needs twelve-count colored pencils, one “quality” pack of erasers, whatever that is. Duff – no, I am not getting materials for the solar system project yet – otherwise he’s set, Andy can get her own supplies, for God’s sake, she’s fourteen. “Too time-consuming.” As if to confirm this, my phone vibrates with what turns out to be another selfie of Brad at the gym.

“Alice,” Joel says, giving yet another girl the once-over (Gisele, you are toast!). “That’s what I mean. You’re supposed to have your time consumed by that sort of thing.” He flicks the school supplies list. “Not this.”

“That baby is too young for chocolate,” says a grouchy-looking woman who has her own baby in one of those weird sling things.

“Nobody asked you,” I snap. Her brows draw together. Joel gives her his most charming smile, drawing me away by the elbow.

“But we’re grateful for your advice. Who knew? Thank you.”

She smoothes her shirt and actually smiles back at him.

Honestly.

Here’s Brad sitting on our steps when we get home, texting – probably me – with a frown. “Allykins,” he says, coming to his feet for a hug.

Joel raises an eyebrow at me with a smirk, mutters, “I’m off to see Dad.” And leaves.

Without carrying in any of the school supplies.

In the kitchen, Jase, obviously fresh from practice, sweaty and with grass stains on his jersey, is plowing through a huge bowl of chicken and brown rice. Tim’s planted on our counter like he belongs there, scarfing down something with melted cheese all over it, hot enough to be steaming. Duff, Harry, and George are eating blueberry pie with melting vanilla ice cream. Dirty plates everywhere. The kitchen smells like boy and feet.

And . . . Tim again.

All relaxed and at home, wearing the swimsuit he was jogging in this morning and a Hodges Heroes baseball shirt that’s slightly too tight even on him. He grins at me, lopsided dimple and all.

Hot mess inside and out, that boy, probably hasn’t even showered. Certainly hasn’t shaved carefully, since he’s got a little cut near his chin. Yet another person who needs a mother, a maid, a manager –

I set Patsy down, grab her pink princess sippy cup, slosh milk into it, screw on the top, shove it at him. “Slow down. I’m not driving you to the hospital when you get second-degree tongue burn.”

Tim takes a defiant bite of scalding cheese. Another. Then slowly raises the sippy cup, salutes me, and, watching me with serious eyes, gulps it down.

“Pie,” Brad says happily. “I love pie.” He pulls out a chair, flips it around, straddles it, and says, “Cut my slice extra-big, Allosaurus.”

George cocks his head, wrinkling his nose. “Allosauruses were some of the biggest dinosaurs of all. They ate Stegosauruses. Alice isn’t very big. And she’s a vegetarian.”

Brad can get his own damn pie.

“Get your own damn pie,” Tim mumbles between more mouthfuls of volcanic cheese.

“Hey, Alice, Joel’s completely out of the garage – he’s not coming back for anything, right?” Jase slosh-pours himself a huge glass of milk, drains half of it, refills. Finally got groceries, and at this rate they’ll be gone tomorrow.

“Thank God, yes,” I say.

“Great,” he says. “I told Tim he could take it. He moved in last night.”

“No escaping me now,” Tim tells me cheerfully.

“Boy, Alice. Your face is really red,” George says after a second.

“Al –” Jase starts, then falters.

Tim takes one look at me and jolts off the counter, hand outstretched. “Whoa. What – hell – what did I – ?”

I hold up my own hand. “Don’t say another word . . . There are groceries and school supplies in the Bug. Deal with them.” Then I practically drag Brad out by his hair.

“I screwed up again, yeah?” I say to Jase as the door slams behind Alice and ol’ Brad.

Jase rubs a hand down his face. “I’ll talk to her.”

“What, was she, like, going to move in there – with that guy? ‘I love pie’? What is he, five?”

“Alice never said a thing to me, Tim.” Jase picks up a forkful of chicken, puts it back down.

George says philosophically, “Pie is good. Except the kind with four and twenty blackbirds baked in it, prolly. You know, like, sing a songofsixpence, pockafullarye?” he warbles in this high voice that sort of slays me. “That sounds yuck.”

“No way would they sing when they opened it,” Harry says, with his mouth full of crust. “Because they’d all be cooked and dead.”

George’s eyes get big. “Would they?” he asks, looking back and forth between me and Jase. “Cooked?”

“No way,” Jase says firmly, “because . . .” He hesitates a second, and George’s eyes start filling.

“Because, dude, it wouldn’t be an eating pie,” I say. “It would be a performance pie. Like something to make the king laugh because he was all stressed from –”

“Counting out his money,” Jase finishes, nodding, all confident. “Right, G-man? Isn’t that what he was doing – ‘in the countinghouse, counting out his money’?”

George nods, soberly. “He’d be all upset like Daddy at work, so they’d make him a performance pie? Like, like a play?”

“Exactly,” I say. “They’d make this, uh, fake pie –”

“To make him laugh. Like Mommy does.” George is nodding, like the whole thing makes total sense now.

“But where would they get the blackbirds ?” Harry asks. “Who has blackbirds lying around?”

“They’d probably have them in the barn or something,” Duff says, all fake-casual. “Like, kind of tame ones. Maybe the king was, uh, into birds.”

This story is getting away from us. But George is down with it. “We could look them up in my Big Birds of the World book. See if you can tame blackbirds.” He slides off the kitchen chair and trots off, Harry at his heels.

“Nice job, Duffy,” Jase says. “Thanks for chiming in.”

“I was sort of lame,” Duff admits, scraping up the last of his pie. “‘The king was into birds’? But I tried. It’s just hard sometimes to see what’s gonna scare George.”

“Dead, baked birds? It’d give me nightmares.” I shudder.

That or that asskite Brad, and what Alice might be getting up to with him right this very minute.

“Do we have to?”

Brad may be upward of 225 pounds and over six feet tall, but he sounds like my little brothers when I drag them shoe shopping. “Yup,” I say.

He weaves hesitantly through traffic – he drives like he’s in one of his video games on slo-mo, sudden spurts of speed and then well below the limit. Staring out the car window, I don’t see the blur of the maple trees that line the turnpike but the garage apartment reinvented, the way I was going to do it.

All of Joel’s heinous furniture piled into the attic. My great-aunt Alice’s brass bed down from there. Along with her big wardrobe that Jase and I were always trying to find Narnia in. The walls painted a deep burnt-orange color, October Sky, a paint we got in at Garrett’s Hardware last week – so not the dingy white that’s in there now – far from the “bridal pink” in the room Andy and I share. I saw something in a magazine last month – this tulle canopy that goes over your bed, making it into your own cocoon. Splurge on those billion-thread-count sheets that are so soft you barely notice them at all. Stereo speakers for my iPod and a reading corner full of books that aren’t textbooks, with big puffy floor pillows and –

“C’mon, Ally-pally. Let’s hit Pizza Palace and you can bash my butt at Slimin’ Sumos.” Brad elbows me, giving me his best smile.

“I don’t feel like eating bad pizza while we play videogames, Brad.”

Now I sound whiny too. I dig my fingernails into my palm and kick my feet up onto the dashboard. Let it go. It’s just an apartment. Just a space of my own, for the first time ever, and for the last time for a while too, assuming I can still accept the transfer to Nightingale Nursing in the spring, assuming things at home are running smoothly, assuming I can get student housing and –

Sharp inhale. Another.

Brad squeezes the back of my neck. “Yowch, you’re tense, Allo. Don’t do that funky breathing thing. It freaks me out. How ’bout we go back to my place? I’ll send Wally out for decent pizza. Like all the way to Ilario’s or something. That would give us at least half an hour. I could . . . relax you.” Now he’s rubbing my shoulder, giving me a sunny, hopeful grin. No stormy weather with Brad. All one mood, like the easy listening music they play at the dentist.

“I see a smile, Als. You want to, don’t you? C’mon. Let’s book it home. I’ll boot the Walster for the whole night if you want. Bummer for sure about the apartment – that would have been sweet – but it’s not like I don’t have my own place.”

Brad’s “place” is a three-story house in White Bay. His parents live on the first two floors, Brad and Wally in the basement, his grandmother, who I’m pretty sure refers to me as That Whore, on the top.

He reaches over and gives my knee a squeeze, while passing a camper on the right and leaning on the horn.

I sigh.

“Is that a yes? C’mon, Aliwishous. We could take a shower or something. My dad fixed the hot water tank.”

“Let’s go to the batting cages. I need to hit something.”

“Works for me. Whatever floats your boat.”

He’s nothing if not steady. Which is good when you’re a little bit shipwrecked. He’s now singing along to the radio – a commercial for river cruises. Steady is solid ground under your feet. Even if the planks are a little thick.

But the garage apartment? I’m not letting that go down without a fight.

Chapter Eight

“You’re actually knocking, sis?” I open the door to find Nan, one arm balancing sheets and towels, the other extended to knock again.

“I always knock,” she says, swatting my nose instead. “I respect your privacy, unlike you, reading my diary.”

I kick the door open wider. “C’mon, get my towels out of the rain, assuming those are for me and you’re not dropping off laundry. And really? The diary again? Jesus. It was once, it was four years ago, and I had insomnia. Your diary was like a sleeping pill. ‘Dear Diary, I –’” I start, all sugary. But I cut myself off. I’m being a jackass.

You want the truth, that diary about broke my damn heart. It was full of these letters from Nan to God. I knew she’d gotten the idea from this Judy Blume book she loved crazy much, because I’d read part of it when I was ten and someone told me it was all about tits. It was, but not in the way I was hoping. Anyway, Nan’s diary entries were just sad – like, she was begging God as if he was Santa, the jolly old elf who could give you good grades and parents who were always proud of you, and a brother who wasn’t a fuck-up and get Mark Winthrop to love you forever and ever, amen.

Nan dumps the sheets and towels on the Sox beanbag chair and looks around, pulling off her windbreaker and wrinkling her nose. “Since when are you the big sports fan? What’s with the weights? Where’d you get all this stuff, anyway?”

“I robbed Dick’s. What do you care? What’s with all that?”

“Mom wanted me to bring it and to –” She stops dead.

“Spy on me, right? Make sure I wasn’t up to no good?”

“Are you?” Her voice is sharp. “Are you in trouble again or something?”

“Wha-at? No. Not more than usual. Why?”

“Some woman, or girl, or whatever – keeps calling, asking for you. Do you owe anyone money? I – know what Dad said to you. If you need money, I have –”

“Nan, kid, I’m fine. I don’t owe anyone anything but a shitload of apologies. Don’t stress. It’ll affect your grade point average.”

Her cheeks flame at that last and she says, “I . . . I’ve been doing my college applications. Starting them. So maybe I can be early-decision, I won’t have to freak out all year. And –”

“Nano –”

“It comes easy to you, Tim, but it’s really hard for me to concentrate –” Her voice breaks a little. She’s blinking rapidly, shoulders hunched, giving me the face.

But I shake my head. “Just no, okay. No.”

Her expression goes blank for a second, then she says, “That’s that, then. So . . . so . . . where do you sleep?”

I point to the bedroom door. “Be my guest. The drunk, naked babes are all in the shower right now, so no worries.”

“You’re such a jerk. I thought I’d make the bed, because I doubt you have any idea whatsoever how to do that. You can come watch and –”

“What, you’ll quiz me on it later? I’ll pass. I’m gonna get in the shower.”

“Fine,” she says. “Watch out for the naked girls. Word is they’re slippery when wet.”

I start laughing. She’s a pain in my ass, Nano. But I’m a dick to her ninety percent of the time and she loves me anyhow. She went all uptight right when I went all crazy and I wish to hell there was an AA for perfectionism, because I’d haul her ass there in a heartbeat.

She’s smiling back at me now, because I laughed, and she was the one who made it happen, because, as she said in that goddamn diary, “Dear God, make me funny like Tim, because people like funny people and maybe then Mark Winthrop would . . .”

Love her.

“Nano – the school shit,” I say, then swallow. “I can’t help you that way anymore. You get that, right?”

She nods, staring fixedly at the beanbag chair. “Look, about the college money, Tim – Dad said I’d probably get it for Columbia because you –” She stops, and I can hear the gears turning as she tries to figure out how to put it. Because you –

Are the boy most likely to.

Fail.

Everyone and everything.

There it is again, its silver top gleaming under the light of the Schmidts’ fake streetlamp, glossy from the rain. The car pauses at the end of our block, as it has three times since Brad dropped me off. Then, as I watch, it signals the turn, though our street is completely deserted. I edge down the steps, arms folded against the wet, silty breeze blown over from the river.

Looking up at the shaded windows of the garage apartment, I see Tim’s rangy figure pass by, then someone else, a girl, hair in a ponytail, gesturing with both hands.

As I’m watching this, the car pulls slowly into our driveway at a bad parking angle, sharply slanted behind my Bug and Tim’s Jetta.

The headlights snap off.