Expanded Universe, page 10
part #13 of The Last Picks Series
“And dessert nachos would be…” Bobby asked.
“Oh Bobby.” I laughed. “Sweet, simple, innocent Bobby. A stranger in this brave new world—”
“Is it the graham crackers you hid under your bed?”
“I didn’t hide them under my bed! I put them there in case I had an emergency.”
His eyebrows went up.
“A snack-related emergency,” I said. “My blood sugar could plummet in the middle of the night. Thousands of people die every year because they weren’t prepared.”
“That’s absolutely not true.”
“And for your information, you can use lots of things. You can use graham crackers, yes. You can use cinnamon tortilla chips. You can use a brownie. Oh! And you can put ice cream on top of it—”
“Isn’t that a brownie a la mode?”
“Why do you do this to me? Why is your goal in life to take away everything good and beautiful from me?”
“I want to circle back to the Top Ramen comment, because I noticed a lot of those ramen packets in the cellar.”
“Did you know if you dump out the soup part, it’s actually a perfect meal? It’s got noodles, check. Flavoring from a little foil envelope, check. Sodium, check.”
“I know you think I’m joking, but I want you to get a physical.”
See, this is what I was talking about—when Bobby wants to, he can be hilarious.
As I pulled the nachos from the oven, I opened my mouth to explain why I didn’t need to see a doctor (because I eat a lot of Indira’s banana bread, and bananas have potassium, and that balances out the sodium). Before I could lay some science on Bobby, though, the doorbell rang.
I fought a wave of disappointment. “Did you invite someone?”
Bobby shook his head. After a moment, he said, “It’s probably Keme.”
But it couldn’t have been Keme. Because Keme didn’t ring the doorbell. And neither did Millie or Fox or Indira. And I didn’t know who else it could be. It was New Year’s Eve. We were in a dark house, at the end of a long drive, on the outskirts of town. And Hemlock House was, by any technical standard, a Class V haunted mansion—nobody was dropping by for a casual visit.
Except, apparently, they were.
Bobby followed me to the front door. When I opened it, I froze. And then I said a lot of words in my head (words you won’t find in “Auld Lang Syne”).
She’d changed her hair again, of course. And she was tan, even though it was the middle of winter—because she’d been in Borneo or Myanmar or Thailand. She huddled inside a lightweight jacket, shivering, and it wasn’t until I felt the first pinpricks on my face that I realized it was sleeting.
As soon as she saw me, a smile broke across her face. “Baby brother!”
2
It took a lot of hugging—and a lot of yammering—before I got Dottie settled in front of the fireplace in the billiard room. She immediately wrapped herself in the blanket I’d laid out for me and Bobby (get your minds out of the gutter) and set to work unwrapping the chocolates that I’d bought for me and Bobby (okay, mostly for me, but Bobby was a good partner in crime, and he was always willing to eat the ones that were scientifically gross—I’m looking at you, raspberry cream, vanilla cream, and cherry cordial).
I must have been in a fugue state because somehow I ended up in the kitchen, cutting myself a slice of Indira’s Boston cream pie. Then I stood there, refrigerator door propped open with my hip, and went to work.
“Everything okay?” Bobby asked.
I paused mid-forkful. Then I swallowed and said, “That’s my sister.”
He nodded.
“Dottie,” I said.
“You seem like you’re upset.”
“No, no.”
Bobby waited until the tines of my fork scraped the plate again. Then he said, “Really? Because you just inhaled that slice of pie.”
“It’s a cake, technically.”
And I cut myself a second slice.
When I straightened up, Bobby was standing next to me, and he took the plate from me. I made an admittedly unattractive noise about that, and Bobby’s eyes got really wide. Apparently, in the name of caution, he took the fork from me too.
“Why don’t we slow down on the cake?” he said. “Dash, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just needed some brain food. To, uh, think. With my brain.”
Bobby could have a remarkably expressive way of looking unexpressive.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just—” She ruined everything. That’s what I wanted to say. I’d had the whole night planned out—a perfect evening with Bobby, just the two of us. And while we were, technically, only friends, things had been…changing. It was hard to put my finger on what, exactly. We spent time together, but we’d always spent time together. We talked, but from the very beginning, we’d always been able to talk. It was something else. A vibration in my chest, like someone had plucked a string and the note went on and on, until sometimes it hurt to sit close to him. A gloss on everything, making the world brighter, until sometimes he was so beautiful that I had to force myself to look at something else. Most of all, a current rushing back and forth between us, just below the surface, that made me feel like the next word, the next move, the next touch might make both of us slip, and then we’d—
What?
I didn’t know. That was the whole problem.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to find out tonight, because Dottie was here.
Someone else might have been curious about why their sister had showed up unexpectedly on their doorstep when, the last thing they knew, she was on the other side of the planet. But that person hadn’t spent the last twenty-seven years of their life living with Dorothy Dane. Although living with was a pretty broad term, since she’d spent most of the last ten years couch surfing.
“You haven’t talked much about your sister,” Bobby said. “Is there a problem?”
And that was such a very Bobby question that it knocked off some of the shock. “No, God. Dottie’s great. She’s just…Dottie.” The look on Bobby’s face told me that wasn’t particularly helpful. “Okay, you know how some people—they just live to make their parents mad?”
“She doesn’t get along with your parents?”
“No, that’s the whole problem. Everything Dottie does, she does to drive them crazy. And it never works. They’re always impressed. They’re always thrilled. They’re always so proud of her. I swear to God, one time Dottie called my mom and told her she’d burned down her house, gotten arrested for arson, and been expelled from UCLA, and my mom talked about it for a year. I mean, she told everyone she knew. She framed a newspaper article about it.”
“Uh.”
“Actually, in hindsight,” I said, “they were probably a little disappointed that I didn’t murder Vivienne.”
“About that arson charge—”
“Oh, she was doing performance art, something like that. Bobby, it’s insane. She got into Berkeley. She dropped out of Berkeley. She did an apprenticeship as a tattoo artist. Then she did an apprenticeship as a pipefitter. She wrote this book of poetry that won just about every award a new poet can win, and then she did a follow-up performance where she burned every copy she could buy in a bonfire. She participated in not one but two military coups, don’t ask where, and I swear to God, my parents don’t believe me, but I think she did some sort of undercover work for the CIA. And when she’s not doing any of that, she’s backpacking in Asia or South America or Europe—I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to get to the North Pole next year.”
The thrum of the wind against the house filled the silence. And then Bobby said, “She sounds like a lot.”
That made me laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.” I rubbed my face. “I’m so sorry, Bobby. I know how weird this is.”
“Is she going to burn down the house?”
“What? God, no. I mean, I hope not.”
“Does she have any contraband?”
“No, she doesn’t use drugs.”
“Okay, then I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
“Easy for you to say,” I told him. “She didn’t force you to be in her feminist retelling of Magic Mike.”
“Isn’t Magic Mike already kind of feminist?”
“Please don’t.”
“Is there a video?”
“This is why I’m going to have to become an old-fashioned hobo and start riding the rails,” I said. “It’s the only way to get away from her.” Before Bobby could answer, I said, “Come on. Let’s go meet my sister.”
3
As we approached the billiard room, though, voices rose to meet us.
“Okay,” Dottie was saying, “but the tourists, right?”
Fox’s laughter was unmistakable.
“I swear, every time I go, there’s some bro named Steve wearing a neon tank. He’s usually from Australia, and he spends every night getting blackout drunk, and the only thing he can talk about is—”
Fox chimed in and said at the same time as Dottie, “Khao Sarn Road!”
They both burst into fresh guffaws.
I stopped in the doorway, distantly aware of Bobby standing at my shoulder. Dottie had moved to the chesterfield. She was still wrapped up in the blanket meant for Bobby and me, and the box of chocolates was empty. But she also looked…better, I guess, than she had on the doorstep. Probably because she wasn’t freezing to death in the sleet anymore, but it seemed like more than that.
We’d always looked alike: the same dark hair, the same dark eyes, the same wiry build, the same crooked smile. That’s where the resemblance ended. I was taller, and I had a tiny degree of fashion sense (gamer tees, canvas jackets, joggers—I’m talking sensible wardrobe staples). I kept my hair short and managed, most days, not to make a total mess of it. Dottie, on the other hand, preferred cutting her hair herself. The current do consisted of extremely short bangs (like, so short they frizzed up into a tiny cloud), and then long hair in back, in a kind of half-up, half-down look. It was kind of like a mullet ponytail, if such a thing existed. And her clothes—so many layers! A biker jacket with lots of shiny zippers. A Santa Cruz hoodie. A flannel. A Nirvana tee. She had decided, apparently, not to layer her jeans (she was only wearing one pair, as far as I could tell), but the snakeskin boots more than made up for it. With rattlesnake fangs sticking up in front, by the way.
She and Fox currently occupied the chesterfield. All the Last Picks were there—having come over, I guessed, from Indira’s flat in the coach house. Millie was perched on an armchair, bent toward them, her face alight with wonder and interest. Keme sat on the arm of the chair; he was clearly trying to remain wary of Dottie, but he was also clearly fighting a losing battle (although some of that must have been the thrill of getting to sit so close to Millie). Indira stood against the wall, arms folded, an unreadable look on her face. Then her gaze flicked to me, and I thought I saw her expression change.
“Dasher!” Dottie said when she saw me. “Oh my God, I feel so much better. Thank you.”
“Dasher?” Bobby murmured next to me.
“Dasher?” Fox asked.
“DASHER?” Millie, uh, said?
“Because my name is Dash—” I tried.
“Oh my God, you haven’t told them about Dasher?”
“No, Dottie, don’t—”
Twisting around in her blanket, she rummaged for her phone. “He wrote the most incredible one-act play—”
“Started,” I said. “Didn’t finish. Will never finish. Because the project is dead, buried, etcetera.”
“Dash wrote a play?” Fox asked.
“Was it SAD?” (Guess who?)
“Good question, Millie,” Dottie said as she produced her phone. “It was the saddest thing ever. It was called Dasher the loneliest reindeer, and it was about how all the other reindeer died in a plague, and Dasher was the only one left, and there was a lot of nudity—”
It’s hard to pick a single word for all the noises that happened in that moment. Cacophony, I guess. Or maybe just a sound explosion. Bobby coughed like something had gotten caught in his throat.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay! There wasn’t a lot of nudity—”
“Not if you count the antlers,” Dottie said.
“Please tell me there are pictures,” Fox said.
“Fox,” Indira said.
“Everyone’s wondering!”
“Of course there are pictures,” Dottie said, “but I don’t know if Dash—”
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“One?”
“One, Dash?” Millie asked. “Please?”
“One with your clothes on?” Dottie added.
“Oh my God,” I said.
Millie and Dottie shared a look and said, at the same time, “Yay!”
I immediately realized my mistake. I mean, it wasn’t a bad picture. I was wearing my brown reindeer suit, and the antlers were kind of cute. I looked like a baby because it had been, God, seven or eight years ago. The only problem was—
“Who’s that hunk of man?” Fox asked.
“That’s not Hugo,” Millie said.
Indira made a little sound that was almost a purr. “He’s very handsome.”
“Oh, that’s the quarterback Dash was dating. Dasher, what was his name?”
“I wasn’t—we weren’t—”
Keme looked at me and then looked back at the picture. He pushed his hair behind his ears, grinned, and chose that moment to say his first words of the evening: “Dude. Nice.”
“We all loved him,” Dottie said. “He was so sweet. He was perfect for Dash, actually.”
“He was perfect for a nervous breakdown,” I said. “Especially since he’s married to a woman and has three children now. I didn’t even know he was closeted for the first six months because I just thought he liked hanging out in my room.”
Bobby’s low “Oh my God” sounded particularly despairing.
“You know what?” I said, my face heating. “This has been so much fun, but Dottie has to go now. Right, Dottie? You’ve probably got a plane to catch to, uh, Kuala Lumpur. Love you, happy New Year, bye. See you when the first parent dies.”
“Dashiell,” Indira said.
“Oh, it’s from a TV show,” Dottie said, waving away Indira’s shock.
“Dottie can’t leave,” Millie said. “Dottie is AMAZING!”
Keme glowered at me.
“You’re not going to throw your sister out in this weather,” Fox said, “are you, Dasher?”
“I mean,” Dottie said slowly, “I was hoping I could crash here for a few days…”
Everyone must have seen the moment of defeat. Millie cheered. Keme’s glower eased into a frown. Fox shouted, “Huzzah!” And Indira smiled at me and nodded.
From Bobby, though, I felt only a keen, wary interest—and so I did my best not to look at him, in case that interest turned into a question.
“Come on,” I said to Dottie. “Let’s find you a room.”
4
Dottie insisted on having “the murder room,” as she called it—even after I’d explained, as many times as I could, that nobody had been murdered in that room. Well, not unless you count Nathaniel Blackwood, I guess. Or Nathaniel Blackwood’s wife. Although, those killings had technically happened on the balcony, so maybe the room was fine, but it was more of a murder balcony?
In any case, Dottie seemed perfectly comfortable in Vivienne’s old room. It had been untouched, aside from fresh bedding, since the days when Vivienne had lived here. Dottie quickly got caught up in looking at Vivienne’s private collection of books.
As soon as I could, I escaped to the kitchen. The only way out of this evening seemed to be a sugar coma, and the Boston cream pie was calling my name.
When I got there, though, Bobby was standing in front of the refrigerator. His stance was wide. His arms were crossed. Even in a sweater and jeans, all his muscles were popping. (God, please let that be a thing people say.) “What’s going on?”
“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to get my emergency cake.”
“Dash.”
“Nothing’s going on.”
Bobby set his jaw.
I pushed him out of the way. Well, I tried to.
After a while, Bobby must have gotten tired of being embarrassed for me because he caught hold of my hands and held on until I had to look him in the eye. “Are you upset because she was telling people about your life?”
“Embarrassing things. Humiliating things. Soul-crushing abominations that should have been swallowed up by the dark tide of history.”
“Like Dasher the Loneliest Reindeer.”
I shuddered. “Exactly.”
“It was cute,” Bobby said.
I rolled my eyes.
Bobby’s pause was so slight that I might have missed it from someone else. “A quarterback?”
I groaned.
“He was very good looking,” Bobby informed me.
“How are you being polite and somehow making this so much worse?” Before Bobby could answer that, I continued, “Look, that’s just Dottie; she has a hard time remembering I’m not twelve.” The look on Bobby’s face made me say, “Rude! Anyway, it wasn’t my favorite part of the evening, but she’s been doing that my whole life. It’s just a big sister thing.”
“Is there a reason she shouldn’t stay here? Because I’ll ask her to leave.”
“Oh my God, Bobby, don’t you dare!”
“I understand family can be difficult—”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that. Everything’s fine. She’s great. I love Dottie. I mean, I haven’t been around her for much of my adult life, but she’s my sister, and she really is an amazing person. It’s just—” I fought to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “I had such a nice evening planned.” Heat bloomed in my face, and I rushed to add. “With the nachos. And then she showed up, and now everybody else is here, and I’m not going to get to spend any time with, uh, the nachos, and I don’t get a lot of one-on-one time with the nachos, and—have I stopped talking yet?”
