AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sure,” she says.
We say goodbye. I turn away, something warm and fuzzy still glowing in the center of my body.
I haven’t gotten two steps before Thalia calls my name, and I turn back.
She’s still standing where she was, rooted to the spot, both hands on the strap of her bag. She’s holding her breath, lips slightly parted, like there’s something on the tip of her tongue.
“Thalia?” I say after a moment, stepping forward, but it breaks the spell. She blinks and breathes and her body relaxes and she looks away, then smiles.
“Nothing. See you Monday,” she tells me, then turns and climbs the steps into the library.* * *“How many onesies can an infant own?” Seth asks, holding up a tiny white garment.
“I suppose that depends on the wealth of the infant and the number of available onesies for purchase in the world,” I tell him. “But it’s a finite number, albeit a large one.”
Seth folds it in half, then carefully places it on one of the several piles next to him.
“The correct answer is so fucking many,” he says, half to himself. “And there’s another pile. How is there another pile?”
“We can switch if you want,” I offer.
We’re sitting on the floor of Daniel and Charlie’s living room. Next to Seth are three separate laundry baskets along with a pile of clean laundry, and in front of me is a mess of plastic and metal pieces that claim to be an infant swing.
On one hand, the swing does have instructions.
On the other, they’re a garbled mess that barely counts as English. I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes and I’ve put pieces together and then taken them apart about seventeen times.
“I’d rather fold laundry and complain about it,” he says, grabbing another onesie.
“Delightful,” I say, staring down at the instructions. They’re telling me to fit together a piece that looks like a fire hydrant, sort of, with a piece that looks a little like the letter F, only none of the pieces I have look anything like the drawing in the booklet and also, I’m starting to hate everything.
“Just wing it,” Seth says. “You’ve got a Ph.D., for crying out loud, it’s just a baby swing.”
“I can’t wing this,” I object.
“Of course you can,” he says, folding. “What could go wrong?”
“The swing falls apart and Thomas gets hurt?” I say, looking over at him, a piece in each hand. “There’s no speed control, so the swing launches him across the room and toward certain doom? I can’t be responsible for a baby launch, Seth.”
He grins.
“I’ll tell Daniel that I suggested it. We’ll share blame,” he says.
“You say that like you think I’ve forgotten The Skateboard Incident.”
“If you haven’t, you should have.”
“Never,” I tell my older brother, leaning over the useless instruction booklet again. “Never.”
I flip a page, carefully consider a few pieces, and then fit two of them together. It appears to be the right choice, though I honestly have no idea. I’ve never put a baby swing together before.
It’s closing in on ten o’clock Friday night, and the four people who actually live here are all asleep for now, which is probably a small miracle. Seth and I did the dishes and cleaned, and now we’re trying to accomplish a few more things before heading back to his place for the night.
“Are you really going to not tell me who you took to the hospital last weekend?” he asks, lifting a piece of fabric from the pile. “Also, what is this?”
I snap one more piece onto the first two and look over. He’s holding up something that’s blue with white clouds and looks like a wide T with a pocket at the bottom. I tilt my head, studying it.
“A baby hat?” I guess. “Maybe that part is a chin strap?”
“You mean the wings? These things?” he says, wiggling them. “They’re huge.”
“I don’t know,” I protest. “Thomas has a lot of hats.”
“Tell me who,” he says.
“Just a friend,” I say, turning back to the instructions.
Seth just sighs.
“If it were a friend, you’d tell me who,” he says. “Remember when you lost your virginity to Christine Schmidt your junior year and I drove you to buy more condoms and never told anyone? I’ve still never told anyone.”
“I can buy my own condoms now,” I say, dryly.
“And are you?” he asks, snapping a towel.
I decline to answer.
“If you won’t tell me, it’s someone I know,” he goes on, talking mostly to himself. “An ex you don’t want us to know you’re back with?”
I stop what I’m doing and look over at him.
“What?” he asks after a moment.
“Are you seriously asking me that question?” I say.
“We’re friends.”
“Is that why you’ve been celibate since she moved back?”
He freezes for a moment, holding a crib sheet with sleeping bears on it up, like he’s contemplating it. Then he puts it down, folds it, folds it again with the kind of exacting, studied movements that mean I just got to him.
