I switch our call to FaceTime, flipping the camera for her to see my current view. Tyler has the ball again, and he takes several steps back, aiming and hitting a three pointer. I turn the phone back so the screen faces me again, one eyebrow arched.
“Wow. Looks like you have quite a view. But why the surprise? What did he look like back then?
I describe a younger Tyler to Penny, sparing her no detail. I was incredibly attracted to him, and he was cute, but in an adorably nerdy way.
“Think, Andrew Garfield in hisSpider-Mandays. Glasses and all. Gangly but boyishly handsome.”
Penny hums in appreciation.
“Right. Now picture present day Tyler.”
“Ahh,” Penny says, following my instructions. “So what you’re saying is he’s still Andrew Garfield?”
Tilting my head, I consider this. “Huh. I guess you’re right. Andrew 2.0.”
“Listen, we’re about to grab some lunch. Try not to climb him today. Not in front of the kids, at least.”
I scoff. “You know me better than that. I do not climb men.”
“Mm-hmm,” she hums. “Bye, Jo.”
Grabbing the laundry basket, I head down the hall to knock lightly on Abby’s door.
“Come in,” she calls.
I open the door to Abby, sitting cross-legged on her bed, school Chromebook balanced on her lap. Papers are scattered around her and she’s tapping furiously into her calculator. Unlike me, Abby’s whip smart with numbers. She’s already in Algebra 2, even though she’s a ninth grader. It might’ve been a little too ambitious, though, because this year’s been rough. And I can’t even help her with homework. At her age, I dideverything in my power to take as little math as possible, barely scraping by with a D each year. But hey, D’s get degrees.
“Math during Thanksgiving break?” I set the laundry basket at the foot of her bed and take a seat next to her.
Abby looks up with red-rimmed eyes. “Midterms are in a few weeks. And these equations aren’t making sense to me. I worked this one three times and still got the wrong answer.” She points to one equation taking up over half the page.
“Want me to see if anyone can tutor you?”
She sighs and looks back down at her calculator. “I’ll figure it out. I’m watching some YouTube videos.”
I know what she’s doing. We’ve already looked into tutors, and the prices were…a lot. The going rate for a tutor these days has really gone up. Inflation, man. A few I found charge sixty dollars an hour. One hour a week is already out of my budget, and if Abby needed more than that? It would be so expensive.
I smooth a hand down her hair, and she looks back up, a glint in her eye. “Maybe Austin’s good at math.”
I barely suppress a snort. “No way. No clue if he is, but you wouldn’t learn a thing. Try again, kid.”
Her smile widens. “Worth a shot.”
I thump her shoulder, and she laughs.
“Take a break. You haven’t even had lunch. Let me make you a sandwich. We have leftover turkey from Thanksgiving.”
I stand and head to the kitchen and a few minutes later Abby trails in, carrying her Chromebook, calculator, and that stack of scratch paper.
“I meant without your math, child.” I nod to her Chromebook. “Sometimes it makes more sense after a break. Fresh eyes and all that.”
She ignores me, instead she harrumphs and spreads everything out on the kitchen table.
Sighing, I open the fridge, gathering everything needed to make a turkey sandwich. Right as I’m handing the plated sandwich to Abby, Jay barrels into the kitchen, smelling likeoutside and a stinky boy. He grabs a glass from the cabinet and fills it up with water, gulping down half the glass in one long go.
“Did Tyler leave?” I ask.
Jay looks up, wiping water from his mouth and shakes his head. “He’s on the porch.”
