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“You’re tougher than you look,” Barron says, which is satisfying, if patronizing.
“Can I come stay with you?” I ask. Barron’s at Princeton, studying pre-law, which is pretty funny because he is a compulsive liar. He’s the kind of liar who totally forgets what he told you the last time, but he believes every single lie with such conviction that sometimes he can convince you of it. I don’t think he’ll last half a minute in court before he’ll make up something outrageous about his client.
“I’d have to ask my roommate,” he says. “She’s dating this ambassador, and he’s always sending a car to take her to New York. She might not want more stress.”
Yeah, like that. “Well, if she’s not there a lot, maybe she won’t mind. Otherwise, maybe I can do some couch surfing.” I lay it on thick. “There’s always the bus stop.”
“Why can’t you stay with Philip?”
“He’s farming me out to Grandad to clean the old house. He hasn’t said so, but I don’t think he wants me here.”
“Don’t be paranoid,” Barron says. “Philip wants you there. Of course he does.”
Philip would have wanted Barron.
When I was about seven, I used to follow a thirteen-year-old Philip around the house, pretending we were superheroes. He was the main hero and I was his sidekick, the Robin to his Batman. I kept pretending to be in trouble so he could come and save me. When I was in the old sandbox, it was a giant hourglass that would smother me. I was in the leaky baby pool being chased by sharks. I would call and call for him, but it was always Barron who finally came.
He was already Philip’s real sidekick at ten, good for taking care of things that Philip was too busy for. Like me. I spent most of my childhood jealous of Barron. I wanted to be him, and I resented that he got to be him first.
That was before I realized I was never going to be him.
“Maybe I could just come for a few days,” I say.
“Sure, sure,” he says, but it’s not a commitment. It’s stalling. “So, tell me what this crazy dream you had was. What made you go up on the roof?”
I snort. “A cat stole my tongue and I wanted to get it back.”
He laughs. “Your brain is a dark place. Next time, just let the tongue go, kid.”
I hate being called a kid, but I don’t want to argue.
We say good-bye and I plug my phone into its charger and plug that into the wall. I email my completed assignments.
I’ve started opening random folders on Philip’s computer when Maura comes to the door. There are lots of pictures of naked girls lying on their backs, pulling off long velvet gloves. Girls touching bare breasts with shockingly bare hands. I close the obviously misfiled etching of a guy in crazy-looking pantaloons wearing a giant diamond pendant. As scandalous stuff goes, it’s all pretty tame.
“Here.” She holds out a cup of what smells like mint tea. Her eyes don’t quite focus on mine, and two pills rest in her palm. “Philip said to give you these.”
“What are they?”
“They’ll help you rest.”
I take the pills and swig the tea.
“What’s going on with you two?” she asks. “He’s so odd when you’re here.”
“Nothing,” I say, because I like Maura. I don’t want to tell her that Philip probably doesn’t want me alone in the house with her or his son because of Lila. Philip saw my face, saw the blood, got rid of the body. If I was him, I wouldn’t want me here either.
* * *
I wake in the middle of the night with a raging need to piss. My head feels fuzzy, and at first I barely notice the voices downstairs as I stagger down the carpeted hall. I pee, then reach to flush. I stop with my hand on the lever.
“What are you doing here?” Philip is asking.
“Came up as soon as I heard.” Grandad’s voice is unmistakable. He lives in a little town called Carney, in the Pine Barrens, and he’s picked up the trace of an accent there—or he’s let some vestige of an old accent creep back in. Carney is like a graveyard where everyone already owns their plots and has built houses on top of them. Practically no one in town isn’t a worker, and very few of the workers there are younger than sixty; it’s where they go to die.
“We’re taking good care of him.” For a moment I’m thrown, trying to figure out if I’m hearing right. Barron’s downstairs. I can’t figure why he didn’t tell me he was coming. Mom used to say that he and Philip hid things because I was the youngest, but I knew it was because they were workers and I wasn’t. Even Grandad wasn’t coming upstairs to add me to their little conference.
I might be a member of the family, but I am always going to be an outsider.
