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“Fighting? Seriously? You’re sopredictable. Why not spice things up a little? Join the chess club. Get into robotics. Shake up the status quo. I can’t believe my big brother turned out to be a jock. It’s so…cliché.”
Noelani tries to steal a blueberry from me. I slide my plate out of her reach, jamming a piece of toast into my mouth as I get up from the table. “I play thecello, Lani. Isn’t that dorky enough for you?”
Across the kitchen, by the fridge, Lorelei talks to one of the gardeners about edging the lawn or some shit. The poor bastard’s trying to tell my mother something about his schedule, but the woman, in all of her stubbornness, is refusing to accept whatever he’s trying to tell her.
“We have a contract, Sam. You come here twice a week and take care of whatever needs taking care of. You get paid very handsomely for it, too, remember? I have a garden party next week—”
“I know, Mrs. Merchant. I know. But our contract allowsmevacation time, too, and I told you about this trip three mo—”
“No, no. No.” Lorelei tucks her dark wavy hair behind her ears—a sure sign she’s getting frustrated. She sighs deeply. “I’m talking, Sam. Please don’t interrupt me when I’m talking. It’s very rude. Now, you know I need the garden to be absolutely perfect for this party. I need the lawns taken care of. I can’t have the edging looking like shit, okay? I just can’t. Now that someone will be living next door again, I—”
I’m used to tuning my mother out. She can go on and on for hours. I feel sorry for Sam, our long-suffering gardener, though. I’m surprised he didn’t quit years ago. Snatching up my bag, I pocket the keys to the Mustang and shove my chair back under the table.
Lani looks up at me with dark chocolate eyes—eyes like our mom’s. Likemine—and gives me a cheesy, shit-eating grin. “If you’re not gonna eat your fruit, then why can’t I have it?”
“’Cause I’m a dick.” Grinning, I give her the plate with the remnants of my breakfast on it. “Want a ride?”
She looks up at me, mock horrified, like she might fall off her chair. “Absolutely not! It’s my first day at a new school. The last thing I need is for any of my new classmates to figure out that I’m related to the notorious Theo Merchant.”
I stick my tongue out at her. “Probably the only way youwillmake any friends, little bug. Once people find out you’re related to me, they’ll be all over you like flies on shit.”
“Theo!” Lorelei calls across the kitchen. She’s annoyed—sick of dealing with idiots today. “No, thank you. No cursing. She’s fourteen-years-old—”
“She’s heard you say far worse,” I volley back.
“I’m her mother. I’m allowed to swear in front of her. Don’t do that, please.”
I frown at her. “Hold up. Did you just say someone’s moving into the Voss’s place?”
“Yes, baby. Some woman who knew Sorrell’s mother. She’s the executor of her estate. She won’t be staying long. Just enough time to see Sorrell settled in up at Toussaint. Then she’ll be heading back to…lord knows. Wherever she’s coming from.”
“Wait. Sorrell’s enrolling atToussaint?”
“Yes. Today. She’ll beboarding,” Lorelei says, disgusted. “I suppose it’s not as though she can take up residence in the house by herself, though. She isn’t eighteen yet. It’s a crime that that beautiful place was left to a child. It should have been sold. We would have bought it. Expanded the gardens—”
“Sorrell’s enrolling at Toussainttoday?” I repeat.
“Yes, Theo. For crying out loud, keep up! That uncle from New York who took her in after Hilary died finally decided she was old enough to come back by herself. She and that executor woman got back late last night, which is why I need this garden party to be a success so that—” She rounds on Sam again, wittering on about how important this party is to her and how she cannotbe shown up in front of James Voss’s orphaned daughter and some nobody from the middle of bum fuck nowhere.
I’m already gone. Out of the kitchen. Down the hall. Out the front door.
Sorrell’s coming to Toussaint.
Sorrell and I used to make mud pies in the Voss’s back yard when we were little. Hilary Voss was way less neurotic than my mother. She never gave a shit about us making a mess. She used to let us fingerpaint on the walls of the formal living room in their beautiful old brickwork mansion, and Lorelei would have conniptions about it. I remember even saying to her, at seven years old, “What does it matter? It’s notyourhouse.” She’d threatened to shove a bar of soap in my mouth for sassing her over that. But I’d learned two things very quickly because of the conversation that ensued afterwards: my mother, as hardworking and as kind as she could be, had a chip on her shoulder heavier than an Acme anvil. And she was so jealous of Hilary Voss, it made her sick.
Hilary was married to James, for starters. James and my mother had dated back in high school for years. Lorelei had spent a lot of her formative teenaged years in the Voss’s house, and that formal living room was her favorite room in the entire place. It was sacred ground, as far as she was concerned. Lorelei hadn’t gone away to college. She’d been given her sizable inheritance from my grandparents early—my grandparents, who told Lorelei that it was uncouth for a woman of means to work or bother with higher education. So Lorelei had stayed at home and waited for James. Except, James came back from college after graduation with a stranger on his arm. And the Voss’s Victorian heirloom engagement ring was nestled quite snuggly on the third finger of that stranger’s left hand.
Lorelei had gone digging and found out everything she needed to know about the future Mrs. Hilary Voss. She wasn’t from working class stock. No, it was far worse than that. Her parents were hippies and had raised Hilary on a commune down in California, in the Anza Borrego desert, just outside San Diego. Hilary had gotten herself a degree in humanitarian law and planned on using it to help the vulnerable and weak.
My mother had scoffed at that. Told me that Hilary Voss had a savior complex and thought she was better than everyone else in the neighborhood, just because she took the occasional pro bono case. Lorelei had gone into mourning when James died. She was less upset when Hilary had passed.
Sorrell, on the other hand, had understandably been heartbroken, and it had brokenmethat I couldn’t be there for her. She’d moved to New York to be with her uncle. We’d kept in touch through email. Once a week. Twice a week. It was all well and good at first, but after a while, we both became so immersed in our own lives that things just kind of…fell off. But I’m going to get to see her again, though?Today? After a year and a half, waiting for the light to go on in her darkened bedroom window across the way? Fuckyes.
I contemplate knocking on the Voss’s door to see if Sorrell’s there. We always used to ride the bus to middle school together, back before either of us had a license. It would be the most normal thing in the world to ask her if she wanted a ride, but a weird sense of awkwardness stops me from crossing their lawn and ringing their doorbell. It’s as if there’s a hand on my shoulder, holding me back.
A lot has changed in the past few years.A lot. Maybe Sorrell won’t even recognize me. We were kids when she left, barely thirteen. I’ve grown nearly two feet since then. Even I can see the changes in myself when I look in the mirror: I’m broader. Thanks to all of the exercise and gym time I’ve been getting, being on the lacrosse team, I’m not the gangly, disproportionate boy I used to be. She left me a nerd, and now I’m…something else, I guess. There’s every chance that bossy little Sorrell Voss, who’s opinion has always meant more to me than anyone else’s, might not like the man I’m becoming.
Jesus. She won’t like me at all if she finds out how long I sat outside her house, debating whether or not I should go see her, for fuck’s sake. I get into the Mustang, calling myself a pussy, berating myself as I enter the forest, snaking through the switchbacks that lead up to Toussaint. For fifteen minutes, I harass myself like this, driving faster and faster, anticipation building to crazy levels inside me. I get to see Sorrell today. Voss is fuckinghome.
