Asking for Trouble (17 page)

“Yes,” she said.

“No,” he answered. “A guest doesn’t get to have bad moods. A
guest doesn’t get to insult somebody, or be lazy and not make his bed, or not
want to do whatever the family’s doing. A guest had better be on his best
behavior, or he’s not going to be a guest much longer. Ask any of those kids
you wrote about in that letter. Ask them what happens if they screw up. They’re
gone, that’s what, and they know it. They know it because they’ve probably done
it. And sometimes, they do everything just right, and everything’s going perfectly,
and they think this is it, they’re going to belong, they’re going to have a
family, or at least someplace to stay all the way until they’re eighteen. They
think that this time, they won’t have to leave again, and they can relax, and
you know what? Something happens, and they’re out of there. So they can never
relax. They’re always waiting for it to go south. And after a while, they stop
hoping.”

“That’s what happened to you,” she said, her voice quiet,
all the laughter gone. “You were a foster child.”

He looked across at her in alarm. “How did you know that?
Did Alec tell you, or your dad?”

“No. They wouldn’t do that. My dad, especially—never.
If you tell my dad something, it stays right there. It didn’t take a brilliant
deductive effort, though. That you donate to Second Chance, for one thing. And
anybody who says as little about his past as you do, there’s a reason.”

“Yeah,” he said. “There was a reason.”

“When you came that first time,” she said cautiously, “at
Christmas. When I asked you why you weren’t with your family. Is that because
you went to Stanford out of foster care?”

“No,” he said. “I went to Stanford out of nothing.”

She didn’t say anything for once, just waited, and he went
on, probably because it had been a long, physical, emotional day, and he’d had
a beer and a couple glasses of wine, and because Alyssa was curled up on the
couch beside him, and he needed to tell her who he was. He needed to find out
if it would matter to her, and he didn’t want to examine why that was.

“I was a ward of the court from the time I was fourteen,” he
said. “Because my dad was dead, and my mom might as well have been.” He could
see the questions hovering, but he couldn’t answer those right now, so he went
on. “I was in foster care at first, but when I was sixteen, a teacher at my
high school took me in, became my guardian. And I did what I just said kids
don’t do. I believed I could stay. I relaxed. I had a job, I had some money, I
had a place to live. And by winter of senior year, I knew that I had a full
ride to Stanford waiting for me. I relaxed.”

“So what happened?”

“Mr. Wilson—the teacher,” he explained. “He got
pneumonia.” He didn’t tell her he’d had AIDS, because he still remembered the rumors,
the comments that hadn’t been quite quiet enough, Joe’s lab partner who’d asked
to be reassigned after Mr. Wilson had had to quit work and the rumors had got
worse. Not that he thought Alyssa would say anything like that, but the old
habit of protecting Mr. Wilson, of not talking about it, was too strong. Maybe
another time. Or maybe never.

“And he died,” she guessed.

“Yeah.” Joe swallowed. “He died.” After ten days in the
hospital’s Intensive Care ward, not getting better. Not able to talk to Joe,
even though Joe had visited every day. The desperate worry, and the shame of
being worried for himself, too, the barely contained panic at the thought of
what would happen if the older man didn’t recover. Mr. Wilson’s parents showing
up, staying at the house, faces more strained and white every day. Joe not
going into the hospital room any more, because they were there, and they were family,
and he wasn’t, and he could tell they didn’t want him there, that this was
their time.

And then the day he’d come home from school, opened the
door, and the two of them had been sitting in the living room. Just sitting,
until Mr. Wilson’s dad stood up and told Joe what he hadn’t needed to hear,
because looking at their faces was enough. Joe knew that look.

“We’re sorry,” Mr. Wilson Senior had told him two days later,
before they’d left to fly with the body back to Wisconsin for the funeral. A
funeral Joe would be missing, because one thing was for sure, nobody was going
to be buying him a round-trip ticket to Milwaukee. His good-byes had been said
in his room, alone.

“We’re going to have to sell the house,” the older man said,
confirming what Joe had already known, that he was alone again. “I know Larry
was your guardian, and we want to do what’s right, but you’re over eighteen,
and we can’t support you.”

“I know,” Joe said, because he had known. He’d known this
was coming.

“But you can stay until we sell,” Mrs. Wilson put in
hastily. “We want to do what’s right,” she repeated.

“As long as you’re willing to look after the place,” her
husband said. Keeping it businesslike, making sure Joe knew what the
expectations were. “You’re going to need to keep the place clean, and keep the
landscaping up. That’s the deal. You’ll have to get out when the realtor wants
to show it, and move out well in advance of closing, because we’ll be coming
back to get rid of the furniture and clean things out, and you can’t be camping
out here after that. We’re going to have to trust you to do that much, and I
hope we can. I know there’ll be a temptation to let it go, to make it less
attractive to buyers so you can stay longer. I’m going to ask you, for Larry’s
sake, not to do that. And remember, the realtor will be telling us what shape
it’s in. If you do right by us, and by him, we can give you a couple months.
But only if you do right.”

Joe had wanted to yell at him. To tell him that he wasn’t
the user Mr. Wilson’s parents seemed to think, that he wouldn’t do that. He
knew they thought he was cold, because he hadn’t cried. They didn’t know that
he couldn’t let go, because he was afraid he’d never get himself back again.

He’d had two months, as it turned out. And then there he’d
been, eighteen, aged out of foster care, with nowhere to live and noplace to
go.

He’d stayed with some friends of Conrad’s for a couple
months, but he’d known all along it couldn’t be more, because they were having
a baby. Conrad was in Iraq, not exactly in any position to be more help than
that, and Joe wasn’t Conrad’s responsibility anyway. He was nobody’s
responsibility but his own. So he’d crashed with a high-school friend until
graduation, doing his best to earn his keep, buying as many groceries as he
could manage and cooking dinners and always being polite, always respectful, always
grateful, staying at school, at work, at the library as much as he could, trying
not to get in the way of family time, to give them enough in return that they’d
let him stay.

That didn’t last forever, either, because Aaron’s parents
sent him to Europe for a month for graduation, and Joe could hardly stay there
when Aaron was gone. He’d spent that last summer before Stanford on the move.
At one friend’s or another’s, sleeping on couches during the better times. In
the cheapest motel he could find, those last couple weeks, when everyone else
was off to college and he’d run out of money except for what he’d got for the
bike, which was going to get him to California. Starting awake as the noisy,
ineffective air conditioner cycled on and off, trying not to hear the sounds through
the thin walls from rooms that were rented by the hour. Hoping he could make it
without having to resort to the homeless shelter. Waiting out the time until
he’d have a place to go.

“He died,” was all he told Alyssa. “Winter of my senior
year. I’d aged out of the system, but I knew how to survive by then, and I
did.”

“By yourself,” she said slowly.

“No,” he said, “with a lot of help from other people. And
with a scholarship at the end of it. I knew if I could get to Stanford, if I
could keep my grades up so I didn’t lose my scholarship, I’d be OK. That was my
ticket. I couldn’t afford to screw it up, so I didn’t.”

“I guess you didn’t have senioritis,” she said.

“No,” he said, and smiled a little. “Saw it, but never had
it. Did you?”

“Are you kidding? Of course I did. I was busy having a good
time. And when I went to college, I was
really
busy doing it. Not like you.”

“Preacher’s daughter out in the big world?” he asked,
wanting to get off the sad-sack topic of his life.

“Mm-hmm. Sorry if that shocks you.”

“I think by now,” he said, responding to the glimmer in her
eye, the light of her smile like he was programmed that way, “I’ve figured that
out.”

“What do you think you would have
been like, if all that hadn’t happened?” she asked. “More like me? Please say
yes,” she begged, and she seemed to know that he needed this to lighten up,
because she was teasing again. “Please say you wouldn’t have been as perfect as
Gabe and Alec.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. I’d have got in
more trouble, that’s for sure. I haven’t been in trouble in quite a while. I
came pretty close, that night when you had your Tenderloin adventure. That make
you happier?”

“Yes,” she said. “Even though I was the one dragging you in.
At least I know you’re capable of it. If you ever get tired of being perfect, I
think I could find a spot for you in my not-perfect world.”

“Want me to get in trouble with you?” he asked, even though
it was a bad idea to say it, and an even worse idea to touch her the way he
wanted to. He reminded himself that Alec was right upstairs, and took a sip of
wine instead.

“Come on in,” she said, her eyes full of mischief over the
rim of her glass, and he was falling, just like always. “The water’s fine.”

Alyssa came downstairs the next morning to find both Alec
and Joe in the kitchen. Coffee and breakfast, and today, she’d be alone with
Joe, and she couldn’t kid herself that she didn’t want to be.

She’d held her breath the night before when he’d talked
about his past, because it was so obvious that he was barely pulling the
curtain aside to give her a peek at what was behind it, and she’d known what a
rare view she was getting. She’d have been willing to bet that almost nobody
had heard that story, that it was coming from a place he didn’t want to touch,
because it was still too tender. And that it needed the lightest, most careful
treatment, or he’d curl right back up inside his shell again.

She’d always known that there was something behind the
remoteness of his expression, that his walls were there because what was behind
them was too painful to show, too shameful to share. She’d known it at fifteen,
and she saw it now, and seeing it hurt.

She’d done her best to tread lightly, and it had seemed to
work. She’d felt the relaxation, the warmth in him when she’d accepted what
he’d given her without pushing for more, and had been so relieved to get it
right.

He’d tugged at her heart, and then he’d set it pounding,
because it had seemed like something was going to happen at last. She hadn’t
imagined his response, not this time, and she knew it.

But nothing had happened after all. He’d got up, said
goodnight, and gone to bed, leaving her hanging once again. Something was
stopping him from taking that step, and she was getting a glimmer of what that
something was.

It had been a long time before she’d fallen asleep, her body
tingling as if he’d been touching it after all. She could almost feel his hands
against her skin, sliding over her, and she ached for him. He’d been looking at
her, she could tell, the same way she’d been looking at him. She’d felt his
heat, his intensity, the fire that burned just beneath the surface, trying to
find its release, promising to burn everything in its path. She wanted him to
let it go and burn her down. And today, they were going to be alone.

“I could get used to this,” she said, going straight for the
coffeepot, working on that light touch, but it was hard, because she was keyed
up. “What’s for breakfast this morning?”

“Oatmeal for me,” Joe said. “Alec was just trying to order
off the menu.”

“And Joe was telling me what I could do with that idea,”
Alec said. “Seems if I want eggs, I have to make them myself.”

“You still don’t like oatmeal?” Alyssa asked, lifting the
lid on the pot. “Even with fruit in it? Looks good to me.”

“Nope. I didn’t like oatmeal before I did the show,” Alec
said, “and I like it less now. People who say they like oatmeal are the same
people who say they like tofu or wheat grass juice or bulgur wheat. Boringly
healthy food is not delicious.
Delicious
food
is delicious.”

“So what does Rae want for breakfast?” Alyssa asked. “And
how’s she doing?”

“She wanted oatmeal,” Alec admitted with a grin. “Don’t tell
her I said all that. She probably likes wheat grass juice too. I don’t want to
know. But I’m making eggs. You want some?”

“Nope,” Alyssa said. “I like oatmeal too. Thanks for making
it, Joe,” she remembered to add as she dished it into a bowl.

“No problem,” he said.

“Uh . . .” She turned in a circle and looked around the
kitchen. “Remind me where the brown sugar would be.”

Joe opened another of the indistinguishable cabinets and
handed her out a canister, and she got busy with a spoon.

“Wow. Think you got enough there? How about a little cereal
with your sugar?” Alec asked, beating a few eggs in a bowl and dumping them
into a frying pan.

“I like it this way,” she said, and added another spoonful
just because he’d said it.

“You’re
going to
get pudgy, you keep that up,” Alec said, pushing the toaster button down on a
couple slices of bread.

“No,” she said, holding onto her temper, because they were
on vacation, and it was Joe’s house. She knew she was a little touchy today, a little
jumpy, because of Joe. And that Alec was at his most brittle, his most
annoying, because he was worried about Rae. “I’m going to get pudgy if I eat a
bowl full of oatmeal
cookies.
Which I
am not doing. Or if I hadn’t skied all day yesterday and wasn’t going to be
skiing all day today. Not that any of that is any of your business.”

“I’m just saying,” Alec said, “as your brother, guys don’t
like pudgy women, so be careful.”

That was it. One critical comment too many, and in front of
Joe, and her temper was gone, out of her reach. She slammed her spoon down on
the counter and faced her brother. “Alec. Listen to me. How I look is none of
your business, and neither is what I eat. I don’t tell you what to do, so where
do you get off telling me?”

“I’m just giving you the benefit of a brother’s
perspective,” Alec said, turning off the heat under his eggs and starting to
dish up his breakfast. “What’s wrong with giving my little sister some
brotherly advice?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that I didn’t ask for it? Maybe
that you still treat me like I’m fifteen?”

“I do not do that. Do I do that?” Alec demanded of Joe.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “You do.”

“Thank you,” Alyssa told him.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m an adult, do you realize that?” she asked her brother.
“OK, maybe I’m not rich. Maybe I’m not a CEO. Maybe I’m not a doctor. All I
have is one lousy bachelor’s degree in Business from San Diego State, and I’ve
never made six figures and I probably never will, let alone seven. I’m not you,
and I’m not Rae. But I’m trying to be
somebody,
and you’re . . . you’re not helping.”

“I helped you move,” he said, clearly not getting it at all.
Not at
all,
and she wanted to scream.
“I read your letter last night. What is that, if it’s not helping?”

She shoved her bowl away with a bit too much violence, and
Joe put a hand out to stop it as it skittered along the counter. “Yes, You did,
and you paid my way for this weekend, too, and I appreciate all of that, and I
hate
that I resent you, when you’ve done
all those things. But it’s . . . it’s hard to take the help, sometimes. Don’t
you see, can’t you understand that it’s because you think you
have
to help? Like I’m so dumb and such
a screw-up that I can’t do it by myself? All right, maybe I don’t have it all
figured out like you do, but I’m trying. I’m trying to have the life I want. Maybe,
if I were as good as you and Gabe, I’d have figured it out when I was twenty,
but I didn’t. But I’m doing it now, and you telling me I’m doing it wrong . . .
it makes it even harder.”

“I wasn’t trying to tell you that you were doing it wrong,”
Alec persisted. “I was just trying to help, and you’re being oversensitive
about it, all dramatic, as usual. Can you just relax and take a joke?”

That was it. That was the kicker. “Really? I should just
relax? That was a joke, that I’m fat and nobody’s ever going to love me? That I
can’t get along at work, and I make bad decisions? Stop and think how you’d
feel if you were me, and I was you. If it was
you
who was the baby, and the big . . .” She was tearing up now, which
made her even madder. “The big disappointment to everybody. Would you want to
be reminded of it over and over again? Would you want to feel like you were
never going to measure up?”

“I don’t do that,” he protested. “I do not do that.”

“Maybe you don’t mean to, but that’s exactly how it feels,
and you do it all the
time
. Every
Christmas, but that’s once a year, and I just suck it up, but I’m
tired
of it. And now, it’s all the time,
and I
can’t.
All I’m asking you is,
think.
Before you say something to me
about my weight, or my loser apartment, or how bad I’m doing at my job, just
think.
Think about how I’m thirty, and
I’m trying, and I
know
nobody thinks
I’m as good as you and Gabe. Just try to think if what you’re saying is helpful,
or if it’s just . . .”

“Critical,” Joe finished.

“Yes,” she said, picking up her spoon again and stirring her
cereal with angry jabs, not wanting to look at her brother, because she knew
she was about to cry. “Critical.”

“Wow,” Alec said blankly. He picked up his breakfast,
grabbed a knife and fork. “I’ll just . . . go up and eat with Rae, so we can
get out of here.”

He left the room, and Alyssa sat on a barstool in
desolation, staring down at her cereal bowl and trying not to cry, but a couple
tears dripped in there all the same.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Joe, reaching for a napkin from the
holder and giving her nose a defiant blow. “Sorry to have a tantrum and be so
ungrateful, and spoil your vacation.”

“No need to be sorry. I wondered if you were ever going to
tell Alec to shove that thing he does. I know it’s a habit, but it’s a bad one.
I’d have told him myself, but like you said . . .” He smiled at her now, just a
warmth of the eyes, a faint upturn of the mouth, “not my business. It needed to
be said, and you said it.”

“You think he’ll forgive me?” she asked, and a couple more
tears dripped, because she did love her brother, and she was afraid, despite
Joe’s words, that she’d gone too far. He
had
helped her, and she appreciated it. It was just that it always came at such
a price.

“Oh, I think so. Matter of fact, I’d bet that once Rae’s
done talking to him, it’ll be the other way around.”

Which was how it turned out, to Alyssa’s astonishment. She
was in her room, finishing getting ready for skiing, when the knock came at her
door.

“Come in,” she called.

Alec came inside, his usual confident smile noticeably
absent, and sat down on the other twin bed across from where she sat unrolling
a pair of heavy socks.

“I came to . . .” He took a deep breath. “To apologize for
that thing about the oatmeal.”

She looked down, finished pulling on her right sock and made
a little business out of straightening the top. “That’s OK.”

“No,” he said, “it’s not. You’re not pudgy. You look good.
I’m just . . . used to telling you what I think, I guess. And teasing you,” he
admitted.

She nodded, started working on the other sock, resisted the
urge to tell him it was all right, that she’d overreacted. “I’m glad you care
about me,” she said instead. “But it’s hard sometimes not to compare myself to
you.”

“I get that,” he said.

“Or Rae gets it,” she said, looking up at him, unable to
keep from smiling a bit.

He grinned sheepishly, ran a hand through his perfectly cut hair.
“Yeah. She pretty much agrees with you. She says to tell you that when I do
that, you should call me on it.”

“So with both of us ganging up on you,” she asked, “you
think I have a shot?”

He smiled again, leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the
cheek. “The Magic 8 Ball says, signs point to yes. And are we done here? We
good? Because there is nothing I hate more than apologizing.”

She reached for him and hugged him, felt his arms coming
around her, and laughed a little. “Yeah. But tell Rae—good job.”