Expanded Universe, page 8
part #13 of The Last Picks Series
Another thing about teenagers? They’re walking hormone factories.
As I slipped into the kitchen, I considered that I might be able to make the world a better place if I used my powers for good. Then I decided cupcakes were a concrete, specific good, and that was enough for me.
Cakes and pies and trifles and bar cookies and regular cookies and tarts and crisps and, yes, dear God, whoopie pies covered every inch of the counter. And there, still cooling on the windowsill, the fresh air mixing the smell of the ocean with the spiced sweetness of the baked goods, were the cupcakes. Browned-butter apple cupcakes. Twenty-four of them. And nobody would miss just one.
I’d just picked one up when voices came from the butler’s pantry. A woman’s voice I didn’t recognize was saying, “—don’t know how much this means to us every year. Most people donate the cheapest thing they can buy, and we’re grateful, of course, but it’s a special treat for everyone who uses the food pantry when they get something you’ve made. Especially at Thanksgiving.”
Her voice became clearer as she and Indira stepped through the doorway. Followed, of course, by Bobby.
Indira said, “Thank you for offering to help load everything, Bobby, and—Dash?”
“Hey. Hi. Hello.”
Bobby wasn’t one for rolling his eyes, but I could see the toll it was taking.
“I was just going to say,” I said slowly, buying myself time, “that I was going to help you load everything too.”
“Really?” Bobby said.
“Yes, really.”
He looked at the cupcake I was holding. “One cupcake at a time?”
I glared at him. “I mean, sure, if I have to. I wasn’t, uh, clear on the protocol.”
Indira looked like she was trying not to smile.
“It’s so lovely,” the woman said, “to see a group of friends who have truly embraced the spirit of the season.”
As carefully as I could, I set the cupcake down and, ignoring the look on Bobby’s face, I even managed to say, “Happy Thanksgiving.”
2
It was the day before Thanksgiving, and somehow, Fox had talked me into skipping lunch (the third most important meal of the day) and instead doing…this.
This being, apparently, a historical-ish (Fox’s word) tableau vivant staged on a flatbed truck in a warehouse. I was confused about the warehouse part—it was dark, it was cold, it smelled like motor oil, and I had no idea who was going to come here to see the tableau. I was also confused about the historical part.
“I don’t understand why I’m wearing a turkey costume,” I said and flapped my wings.
“Because you’re a turkey,” Fox said.
“Right, yeah, I got that, but I don’t think there were anthropomorphized turkeys the size of an adult male, you know, at the historical Thanksgiving.”
“That’s why I said historical-ish. What happened to your claw?”
“I don’t think turkeys have claws,” Bobby said. Bobby wasn’t wearing a costume. Bobby wasn’t even on the flatbed. Bobby was standing by Fox on the floor of the warehouse, eyes suspiciously alight with what I suspected was amusement.
“Why doesn’t Bobby have to be anything?” I asked as I fixed my claw-foot-thing.
“Bobby,” Fox said, whipping out a monocle to peer at me and then, apparently, dismissing me as they turned back to fuss with a sheaf of papers, “has a certain quiet dignity.”
“I have a certain quiet dignity,” I said loudly.
The worst part was that Bobby chewed on the strings of his hoodie when he was trying not to laugh, and it just. wasn’t. fair.
“What about Millie?” I asked—mostly, at this point, to keep from drooling over Bobby. “Why is she a can of—what are you a can of?”
“Cranberry sauce,” Millie told me brightly.
“Why does Millie get to be a can of cranberry sauce?”
“To symbolize the blood spilled by capitalism and corporate greed,” Fox said without looking up from their notes.
“Wait, what blood?” But then the flatbed rocked slightly as Keme scrambled up to join us. Like me, he was dressed in an enormous turkey costume. Unlike me, he looked surprisingly content. Probably because he was within fifteen feet of Millie, and his teenager brain calculated that his odds of a sudden, spontaneous kiss had just skyrocketed. “And why is Keme a turkey too? Why do we need two turkeys and a can of cranberry sauce? And isn’t it—” I lowered my voice. “—a little racially insensitive to ask Keme to do this?”
“Keme can still hear you,” Millie said.
That was very clear. Keme was using his hands to tell me what I should go do with myself.
“It’s not racially insensitive,” Fox said. They came over to the flatbed, bent to retrieve something from the warehouse floor, and handed up an axe. “It’s a commentary about our nation’s history.”
“What’s a commentary about our nation’s history?”
“Mostly the part at the end when he chops your head off.”
Again, so many questions—like why one turkey chopping off another turkey’s head would be a commentary on anything, except maybe turkey-on-turkey violence—but then I got a better look, and the only thing that could come out of my mouth was “That’s a real axe.”
“Of course it’s a real axe,” Fox said. “How’s he going to chop off your head with a fake one?”
I mean, part of me knew that I wasn’t really going to get my head chopped off. But this was also Fox we were talking about. And Fox’s artistic endeavors had a way of going…awry. Also, I loved Keme, and Keme loved me (I was pretty sure), but also—like, what if he thought he might get that kiss from Millie if he showed off with the axe a little? And one poor, innocent, still-in-the-bloom-of-his-youth mystery writer just happened to be, uh, part of that showing off?
Keme took the axe and gave a few enthusiastic practice whacks. Bobby was trying so hard not to chuckle or guffaw or cackle (choose your verb) that looked like he was about to cry.
“Okay,” I said, “I think maybe, just possibly, we should reconsider some of this.”
Fox folded their arms. And then, the words stiff, they said, “Sure. Let’s reconsider my artistic vision. Because, of course, this is all a grotesque mockery of an artistic performance, and my art—if that word can be applied to something so ignoble, something so foully misshapen—is nothing but a shambling crap-heap, and nothing I’ve ever done has been meaningful or true or justified my pathetic existence on this mortal coil.”
Bobby looked at me. Millie looked at me. Keme looked at me, and he was holding the axe.
“No, no, no,” I said. “Your artistic vision is, um, a vision. It’s true. It’s meaningful. I was just having cold feet.”
“Perfect!” Fox clapped their hands. “Put your head on the chopping block. The parade is about to start.”
“The parade?”
But Fox trotted around to the cab of the flatbed, and as the engine roared to life, the warehouse’s dock door began to roll up. Light spilled into the dark warehouse, and in the distance, I could hear music.
And then, with a dark look for Bobby—because I blamed him for all of this—I put my head on the chopping block. The truck jolted forward. Bobby gave me two thumbs-up, and I muttered, “Happy Thanksgiving.”
3
It was still the day before Thanksgiving, and somehow—against all odds—I had survived being beheaded approximately fifty times as we did our part in Hastings Rock’s annual parade. And, to Fox’s credit, everyone seemed to love our float. It probably helped that nobody made the symbolic connection between Millie’s canned cranberry sauce and what I suppose ought to have been gouts and gouts of blood from my severed turkey body. And since Keme couldn’t swing the axe effectively (those turkey costumes seriously limited our range of movement), everybody seemed to think he was using it as a can opener. Since I got to lie down, my head on the chopping block and all that, and the rocking motion of the truck was surprisingly soothing, I even drifted off for part of it. I woke to hear one little girl saying, “That turkey is sleeping like grandma does after she takes her medicine.”
Now, as Millie and I drove toward her home for what was apparently a local tradition—the Naught Family Dessert and Game Night—I found myself longing for simpler times, like when I’d fallen asleep in public, dressed in a giant turkey costume, while Keme tried to take my head off.
“And then we’ll play TWISTER!” Millie announced. “Have you ever played Twister? I bet you’re good at it because Keme says your arms look like noodles. Do you like noodles? What’s your favorite food? Oh wait! You told me it was anything but soup! My favorite food is my grandma’s chicken and dumplings. Is that a soup? OH! Or my mom’s potato salad. I told Keme that once, and he said potato salad can’t be your favorite food, but it can, can’t it, Dash?”
“Well—”
“Would you say Keme is your best friend? Or Bobby? Or BOTH?” That thought seemed to delight her so much that, for an instant, she was transported: her eyes shone with the potential of my having two besties, and the car began to drift toward the center line. As I reached for the wheel, though, she snapped back to reality with “It’s so CUTE that Bobby is staying at Hemlock House with you! Remember how I wanted Keme to be your roommate? But now Bobby’s your roommate! Isn’t he the most handsomest? Except you, Dash. And Keme. And my brothers.” Although this last part was offered with a dubious tone that suggested family obligation and a certain degree of strained loyalty. “And wasn’t it SAD how he and West broke up? I mean, weren’t they PERFECT? And now he’s single, and you’re single, and it’s just so SAD!”
I’d ordered industrial-grade ear protection, by the way. Stupid shipping delays always happen around the holidays.
Millie continued with “I just wish there was a way for both of you to find someone perfect and be HAPPY!”
That line of thinking seemed incredibly fraught—I had a vision of Millie maneuvering me and Bobby like dolls and insisting “NOW KISS!”, which would officially pull the plug on any chance of me ever having a healthy romantic relationship for the rest of my life—so I felt a rush of relief when Millie turned into the next driveway.
The Naught Home was a ranch with vertical siding painted—in the glow of the headlights—a shade between white and blue. It had a large deck built onto the front of the house and no fewer than six cars (three trucks and three sedans) parked in front of it. The garage door was up, and inside, the garage was stacked wall to wall with boxes, furniture, tools, and what appeared to be several generations’ worth of large, plastic toys (I recognized a pristine Crystal Castle).
“Oh my God,” Millie said as the car rolled to a stop. “Do you know what I JUST THOUGHT OF?”
I threw open the door and all but ran toward the house.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like spending time with Millie. She was such a lovely person, so kind and sweet and, in a beautiful way, innocent without being naïve. I didn’t even mind the volume. (I’d mind it even less when I got the same earmuffs they used for airport ground crews—you know, the ones who stood right under jet engines.) But there were some things I didn’t want to talk about. For that matter, there were some things I didn’t even want to think about.
The door swung open as I approached, and a woman who had to be Millie’s mother waved at me—with both hands. “Oh my goodness,” she said as I got closer, and then she swallowed me in a crushing hug. “You must be Dashiell!”
“Just Dash,” I wheezed.
“We are so happy to have you! I’m Christine, Millie’s mom. Millie has told us everything about you. Now look at those glasses—aren’t they cute? Millie says you moved here from the East Coast. Did you get those glasses on the East Coast?” A note of wonder entered her voice. “Did you get them in New York City?”
“Uh, I got them at Walmart—”
That was when she shouted, “MATTHEW!”
There it was, I decided through the ringing in my ears. The final piece to the puzzle.
Christine grabbed the arm of the man who appeared—thinning hair, sweater vest, and a stone-faced reserve that suggested he wanted a room of his own and, possibly, a pipe. “Matthew, this is Dashiell, Millie’s best friend!”
“Uh—” I recovered in time to say, as I shook his hand, “Dash.”
Matthew Naught grunted, released my hand, and left.
Well, who could blame him after all these years?
“Dash, I want you to explain something to me,” Christine said as she took my arm and led me into the house. My first impression was that it seemed comfortably lived in—clean, and relatively neat, but clearly home to a lot of people, and maybe the tiniest bit outdated. “I was watching Blue Bloods last night, and do you know, Donnie Wahlberg was so rude to his father? I didn’t like that, and I think you should say something to them.”
Aside from the fact that this didn’t seem to be a question, it took me a moment to realize she meant me. “To Donnie Wahlberg?”
“Mom,” Millie said, trying—unsuccessfully—to squeeze between me and her mother. “Mom, Dash isn’t a TV writer. He’s a MYSTERY writer.”
“Well, it’s all writing,” Christine Naught said with staggering surety. “I’m sure he knows somebody who can tell Donnie.”
Fortunately, before I had to respond, Millie’s brothers jumped into the hallway. Literally. I’d run into them a few times around town, and they shared a look: twentysomething guys who were blond, wiry, and had painfully bad attempts at facial hair. Paul was the taller of the two, although only by a few inches, and right then, he was wearing enormous toy boxing gloves. Ryan, the younger and shorter brother, was trying to strap on his headgear.
“Dash!” Paul’s volume didn’t quite reach Millie levels. “Do you want to see how strong we are?”
Ryan was already speaking over him. “Do you want to wrestle?”
“With boxing gloves?” I asked.
“Leave him ALONE,” Millie ordered. “He doesn’t want to wrestle!”
“Be quiet, Millie,” Paul said in the tone of the truly aggrieved. “God.”
“We’re asking Dash,” Ryan said. “Butt out.”
“Watch this,” Paul told me. And then he turned and punched Ryan in the face.
Ryan’s head snapped back, and then he let out a howl. He launched himself at Paul, and both brothers went down and began scrapping in the middle of the hallway.
“Boys!” Christine shouted. “Boys, knock it off! It’s game night!” She even tried clapping her hands, but that didn’t work either.
Somehow, Paul got to his feet and sprinted off into the house, and Ryan chased after him. Both men, it appeared were giggling.
“Sorry,” Millie said, “they’re SO DUMB—”
“Oh my God, is this Dash?”
The voice came from a girl I hadn’t met before. She shared Millie’s build and look, although where Millie tended toward a casual, almost athletic look—with manic caffeinated energy, of course—this girl appeared to have spent an inordinate amount of time in the press-on nail section of the closest Ulta. Another girl joined her, and she had the same vibe.
The second girl said, “We’ve been waiting forever to meet you.”
Christine was practically glowing as she said, “Millie, introduce your sisters.”
Something like a thundercloud moved across Millie’s face. “Dash, this is Kassandra.” (The first one.) “And this is Angeline.” (The second one.) “And they know they’re not supposed to hog you tonight—”
“Don’t you just hate it here?” Kassandra said over her. “I mean, isn’t Hastings Rock so boring?”
I managed to make a noise that, I hoped, was thoroughly noncommittal.
“And there are no cute guys,” Angeline said.
“Or they’re cute,” Kassandra said with a giggle, “but they’re gay.”
“Have you met anyone since you moved here?” Angeline asked.
Kassandra nodded eagerly. “Have you met any hot guys since you moved here?”
“Dash just broke up with his boyfriend,” Millie said. “He’s not trying to meet people right now.”
Angeline shot her a flat look. “Don’t you have something else to do?”
“Is it true Bobby’s living with you?” Kassandra asked. “Everybody’s talking about it.”
From the way Millie’s face turned bright red, I thought I had an idea of who everybody was. “Kassie,” Millie said, and she sounded like she was about to cry. “I told you not to bring that up.”
“God, Millie,” Angeline said like someone who’d reached their limit, “go away!”
Blinking rapidly, Millie ducked her head and retreated a step.
“You have to tell us everybody you think is cute,” Angeline said, reaching for me.
Kassandra took my other arm. “Starting with Bobby, of course.”
Slipping away from them, I caught Millie’s eye. Her face was still bright red, and she was blinking furiously, clearly trying to fight a wave of tears. She looked away almost immediately.
“Actually,” I said, “you’re going to have to excuse me because I made Millie promise that she’d show me her room. And then Millie has to tell you about this guy I went out with. It was possibly the most epic date fail in history. Spoiler alert: he ended up being a murder suspect.”
The sisters stared at me. Christine stared at me. Deeper in the house, Paul was shouting, “It was an accident!” and it sounded like Ryan was crying.
“Millie tells it so much better than I do,” I added. And then, turning to Millie, I said, “Show me your room?”
We’d barely turned the corner when Millie crushed me in a hug, her face wet and hot against my shirt as she mumbled, “Thank you.”
In spite of my splintered ribs and punctured lungs, I managed to say, “Happy Thanksgiving.”
4
It was Thanksgiving morning, and I was being tortured.
