“Perfect,” she says.
“Oh, we need to add capture the flag to Wednesday too.”
“I got your text,” Sasha says, eyes on her laptop, everything already rearranged to accommodate Leo’s tradition. “I was thinking you and Ren could pick up the kegs Saturday morning.”
My hand freezes inside the bag of grapes my mom set on the counter from the cooler she’s unloading, my heart stuttering to a halt.
“Ren?” I repeat.
“Yeah?”
I startle at the sound of his voice, eyes finding him as he enters through the mudroom, a box in his arms that seems to be filled with fun-size bags of Skittles, probably from Stevie’s car, and a backpack over each shoulder.
“What’s up?” he says to the room.
“You and Joni are picking up the kegs on Saturday,” Sasha tells him.
Ren’s eyes flick back to mine. “Are you okay with that?” he asks me.
It catches me off guard, this open acknowledgment of the state of things between us. I look at him in what I hope is awhat the hell, manway and he returns it with an exasperatedno taking it back nowexpression. But, I remind myself, it’s been a long time since Ren and I communicated silently like this, so I could just be misreading him.
“Of course she is,” my mom says, the entire upper half of her body hidden inside the fridge as she organizes its contents.
Sasha pats the chair next to her, angling her head at Ren. “Stop moving for a minute,” she says. “I haven’t seen you in months.”
Ren hesitates. He’s been carrying everything inside from the cars, pausing to help when my mom noticed one of the blinds on the kitchen windows was loose, crouching down to examine the stairs when his dad stopped him on the front porch within minutes of his arrival and said we should repaint soon. Sasha and Thad are together all the time in LA, but naturally they must not see Ren as often.
He sets the box on the table, slides the backpacks off his shoulders, and sits down next to Sasha. She squeezes his arm, looks up at where I’m standing across from them. Ren follows suit, face inscrutable.
“It’s like old times with you two camping out on the screen porch again,” Sasha says. Apparently I was the only one not clued in to the sleeping arrangements ahead of time. She picks up her phone, squints at it. “Great opportunity for the two of you to catch up.”
I can’t help it: I look at Ren again. He and I are united in our deception, after all, and something in this sentiment has me worrying Sasha suspects us, like he’s told her. But he just shakes his head imperceptibly.
“Catch up,” he says to his sister as I look away and bite down, hard, on a grape. “Of course.”
I stare into the bag as I pick through it, tell myself not to read so much into every tiny thing. If I do, we won’t last the day.
“Wait, but you two just saw each other this spring.” Sasha is still scrolling on her phone, half in this room and half in her well-organized head. “That week Ren was in New York.”
My throat tightens. Ren was in New York? Ren was in New York for a whole week and I didn’t know? Was it that time in April when I woke up in the middle of the night convinced I wasn’t totally alone in my apartment,or the few days in March I kept glancing over my shoulder, some strange feeling skittering down my spine?No, Joni, I tell myself.Don’t attribute cosmic significance to this just to make yourself feel better.
“Actually,” Ren says, looking directly at me. “Joni ended up being on a work trip that week, right?”
It surprises me that I can’t respond faster, that making up a lie about being away because of work suddenly seems so much bigger than lying about the fact that I don’t actuallyhavework anymore.
“Right,” I manage as my mom finally extracts herself from the fridge, huffing as she pushes her hair back from her forehead. Because I don’t have anything to add to his lie, I just say, “Last-minute thing.”
“That’s too bad,” Sasha says to her phone screen. “When is the last time you saw each other, then?”
“Um,” I say, eyes latching on to Ren’s again.
“Shit!” Sasha exclaims, slamming her phone onto the table. “I just got an email that the winery is closing tomorrow for the rest of the week for emergency repairs. Something about water damage.”
“When are we supposed to pick up the wine?” my mom asks. She’s halfway between the cooler and the fridge, a bottle of orange juice in each hand, face stricken.
“Saturday morning. I was going to have you two stop there after you got the kegs.” Sasha pushes a hand into her hair, tugs her laptop closer.
“Why don’t I just go pick it up now?” Ren says. “My afternoon is free.”
