“Good,” he said as a clatter in the driveway made us both turn to see that Dad, wearing a vintage Van Halen tee, had dropped his wrench. He bent down to pick it up, met my eye, and then gave me a playful wink. Dad rarely said much, probably because Mom never let him get a word in edgewise. He returned to his work inside the hood of his vintage Mustang, a car he’d been working on restoring since I was a little kid.
“Does he need help?” I asked Oscar, who put his thumbs in his belt loops.
“Best to leave him be when he’s wrestling with the Beast,” Oscar said. That was our family’s nickname for his cherry-red convertible 1977 Mustang Cobra that currently had only two wheels and no working engine.
Dad’s small portable speaker sitting beside the right front tire began blaring Whitesnake, and we both laughed a little. He loved hairbands from the eighties, Wisconsin’s enduring and favorite decade. It’s why he’d named the fish in Mom’s koi pond after his idols: Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Van Halen, Joan Jett, and David Lee Roth, aka Diamond Dave.
“Now that Dad’s busy working on his car, Mom’s got free time, and that’s bad news,” I said. “She’s trying to get me off the Spark app. Tells me she can find me dates.”
Oscar studied me. “If she tries to set you up with any of my friends, don’t let her. Especially not Jude.” He crossed his arms across his uniform.
“Ew, I’d never think of dating Jude.” I wasn’t eleven anymore. Then I hesitated. “Also, why can’t I date Jude?”
“He just got out of a long-term relationship.”
“With Kenzie Gordon?”
Oscar glanced at me sharply. “So you heard.”
“Mom told me.”
“Well, he’s vulnerable right now.” Oscar seemed unusually protective of Jude. But then again, Oscar was always territorial. He had a rule that neither Olivia nor I could even set foot in his room when we were little. Probably because I had a habit of stealing his Swiss Army pocketknife.
“I thought he did the breaking up.”
“He did, but still. Stay away from him.” Oscar planted both hands on his hips, in his typical lecture-stance. “Unlike you, Jude doesn’t do casual.”
“Did I fall into a Jane Austen novel all of a sudden? Are we playingBridgerton? Do you, as the elder brother, get to pick my suitors now? Ooh, what’s my dowry? I’m dying to know.”
“Funny. Real funny.” Oscar turned and grabbed the door handle of his SUV and swung it open. He climbed into the driver’s seat, signaling the end of the conversation.
“Hey, Sheriff!” called Tammy Anderson, interrupting his exit as she scurried up our driveway. Tammy was our neighbor and the town’s busiest busybody, who jumped at any chance to collect gossip from the block.
She wore her signature bright orange puffer vest, and her dyed platinum-blond hair was styled in a 1980s Farrah Fawcett feathered do, the most popular haircut of Tammy’s middle school years. Say what you want about Tammy, but she’d never get lost in a blizzard.
“Hey, Tammy,” Oscar said, managing not to sound annoyed. It was amazing how he did that for everyone in town but me. He kept the SUV door open, booted foot resting against the interior panel.
“And, oh, hi dere, Thin Ice!” Tammy said, glancing at me brightly.
I cringed at the nickname. Oscar kept an immaculate poker face, though I could see the hint of a smug smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, no, yeah, I heard you were back in town? So glad I caught you. I got your mail again, oh, you betcha!” She spoke in the high nasal-forward accent so prevalent throughout the Midwest, as she offered two thin postcards.
“Really?” I took them, noting the top one was a patio furnitureadvertisement addressed to “Resident” and the other was a public service announcement from the city reminding everyone to keep lids on their trash cans to deter the ever-bolder raccoons. Neither of these merited hand delivery, and any other neighbor would’ve probably just pitched them without noting the single-digit difference in the address.
Tammy was just poking around for gossip. Some things never changed. Like Tammy’s brown lipstick, one of the few nineties trends not coming back.
Tammy eyed my tight spandex leggings and cropped white top with distaste. “Wearing white after Labor Day?” she tsked. “And those leggings are a little tight, dontcha think?”
“They’re comfortable.”
“Comfortable? Is that what we’re calling it these days?” she said, shade in her voice. “Oh! I almost forgot, your mom and I were talking about you at knitting club last night.”
Oh, Lord. The knitting club. Might as well call it the Busybodies Matchmaking Club. If your name came up at knitting club, there was an awkward date with somebody’s sweaty, acne-prone nephew in your future.
“Your mom, she goes, ‘Thin Ice is on the Spark app’ and I go, ‘Oh, no, isn’t that dangerous?’ and she goes, ‘Oh, yeah, dangerous for sure, ’cause you saw thatDateline,’ and I go, ‘Of course! Everyone saw thatDateline! That’s how women get murdered!’ And she goes, ‘And I don’t think that’s the app where you find husband material’ and I said, ‘No, yeah, it’s not at all, ’cause I heard it’s a site for”—she dropped her voice low—“easy women with a certain reputation.’ ”
Tammy paused and blinked at me, as if I was going to defend myself.
