Arcadia's Gift(5)

 


 

Chapter 3


The front door was already unlocked when I got home from cross country practice. Our first meet was still two weeks away, but I couldn’t wait. I’ve always been more of a track sprinter than a distance runner, but I’d worked on distance training over the summer and was going to enter some longer races this year.
Cane lay sprawled out on my living room floor watching baseball highlights on ESPN. He’d kicked his sneakers off, giving me a view of the gaping hole in the toe of his sock. He didn’t turn to look hearing me come in. That wasn’t unusual. For some reason, he had trouble making eye contact with me. Maybe he didn’t think I was cool enough for him or something.
Lony sat on the sofa with her feet on the coffee table, painting her toenails. I could hear the head-banging wails of what passed for music in Aaron’s world reverberating up from the basement. So much for doing my homework in peace.
Backpack in hand, I began ascending the stairs to my room. Maybe I could see if Bronwyn wanted go to the public library for a while. With Dad moving, I should get my homework done tonight in case I didn’t feel up to it later in the weekend.
“Hey, Cady!” Lony called out. “Come ‘ere a sec.”
I sighed and poked my head into the living room. “What?”
Lony grinned at me like a Cheshire cat. “Who was that uber-hot emo guy you were with today?”
“Bryan Sullivan. He’s new.” I tried to turn away, but Lony kept talking.
“He’s in my chem class, but he doesn’t talk much. Were you like assigned to show him around or something? He’s a junior, right?”
“I assume so. We have lit together. And I wasn’t giving him a tour of the school. I just walked to class with him.”
“Do you like him?” Lony teased with a sing-songy tone. Cane cocked his head to listen, as if interested in my answer.
“Jeez, Lon! I talked to the guy for a total of ten minutes. Don’t you have cheerleading practice or something?” I asked. Changing the subject with Lony is easy if you bring the topic around to her.
She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Cady, do you live under a rock or something? Tonight is the first football game.” She gestured to Cane wearing his jersey which looked deflated without the hulking pads beneath it. All of the players wore their jerseys to school on game days. “There’s no practice because we cheer tonight.”
“Oh. Well…break a leg,” I replied and hurried upstairs. I wanted to get out of there before Lony could guilt me into attending the game to watch her jump up and down in her pleated skirt, chanting loosely rhyming lines meant to pump up the crowd.
I hung my bag on the back of my desk chair. My bedroom was carefully decked out by my mother in every possible shade of pink. I hated it, but there’s no arguing with her when it comes to interior decorating. Mom is a realtor, and a successful one at that. Even though we’ve lived in this house for ten years and have no plans to move anytime soon, my mother insists on keeping the entire house in perfect “open-house” condition at all times. The one exception being Aaron’s room, but as long as he keeps his mess in the basement where she can pretend it doesn’t exist, she leaves him alone about it.
I never liked the color pink, but somehow as infants it was determined that my color would be pink and Lony’s would be purple. That’s how people kept us straight, I guess. Anyway, the result is that almost every Christmas or birthday gift we have ever received from our extended family had been identical, but in either pink or purple. Like if our Grandma Nora were to get us sweaters, Lony’s would be a soft lavender and mine would be some hideous shade of Pepto-Bismol.
I pressed the power button on my computer, and it purred to life. While it booted up, I called Bronwyn.
“Hey, I’m going to do the loser thing and spend my Friday night at the library. Wanna come?”
“Just a sec, I have to go to my office,” she said. I heard her walk the phone into her pantry and shut the door. She had a little stool in there where she could talk in semi-privacy. Her parents didn’t believe children should be allowed phones in their bedrooms.
“The library actually sounds like more fun than what I have planned,” she said softly. “My parents are making me go to a lock-in at the church.” Bronwyn’s father was the minister the New Life Bible Church, and her mother served as the church secretary.
“Aren’t lock-ins for like middle school kids?”
“Yeah. It’s going to be me and a bunch of sixth graders. Mother says I have to go to set a good example.” Her mocking tone was the extent of her rebelliousness.