“Tracy and I found the box when we were about five and six. We thought it was a Christmas present or something. So we opened it, all excited. But it was just full of random things—old T-shirts with band names on them, cassette tapes, pictures of these big gatherings of people we didn’t know, sports gear. One sneaker. Stuff. Not what we were hoping for, once we realized what it was.”
“What were you hoping for?” Jase’s voice is quiet.
“Treasure. Old diaries or something. His Barbie collection.”
“Er…your dad collected Barbies?”
I laugh. “Not that I know of. But we were little girls. We would have preferred that to some smelly shoes and old R.E.M. and Blind Melon T-shirts.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Now Jase’s finger has edged down my shorts, tracing the same slow line along the waistband. I take a hard-to-catch breath.
“Anyway, at the very bottom there was this telescope. A fancy one, but still all wrapped up, like he’d gotten it but never opened it. Or someone had given it to him and he didn’t want it. So I took it and hid it in my closet.”
“Then you used it? On the roof?” Jase shifts, propping himself up on an elbow now, looking at my face.
“Not on the roof, just from my window. I couldn’t figure out the directions for a few years. But after that, yeah, I used it. Looking for aliens, finding the Big Dipper, that kind of thing.” I shrug.
“Wondering where your dad was, at all?”
“Oh, maybe. Probably. At first. After that I just got hooked by the idea of all those planets far away, all those other stories.”
Jase nods, as though this makes sense to him.
I find myself feeling a little shaky. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Hmm?” He circles my belly button with that light finger. Oh my God.
“Tell me a story.” I turn my head, bury my lips in the worn cotton of his shirt. “Tell me things I don’t know.”
So, with nothing to be distracted by, no brothers and sisters bursting in, no crowd of friends, no awkward on-the-job moment, just me and Jase, I learn things about the Garretts I couldn’t by watching. I learn that Alice is in nursing school. Jase raises his eyebrow at me when I laugh at this. “What, you don’t see my big sister as a ministering angel? I’m shocked.” Duff’s allergic to strawberries. Andy was born two months early. All the Garretts are musical. Jase plays the guitar, Alice the piccolo, Duff the cello, Andy the violin. “And Joel?” I ask.
“Oh, the drums, of course,” Jase says. “It was the clarinet, but then he realized that was just not a turn-on.”
The soft air smells sweet and leafy. Feeling the slow beat of Jase’s heart beneath my cheek, I close my eyes and relax. “How was the training?”
“I’m a little sore,” Jase admits. “But Dad knows what he’s doing. It worked for Joel, anyway. He got a full ride at State U for football.”
“So where are you applying, to college—do you know yet?”
Jase, who’s again leaning on one elbow, lies back, rubbing the side of his nose with his thumb. His face, usually so alight and open, clouds.
“I don’t know. Not sure I can apply.”
“What?”
He tunnels his fingers through his hair. “My parents—my dad—they’ve always been really good about debt. But then, last year, that new Lowe’s started digging ground. Dad figured it would be a good time to take a loan and lay in inventory. Specialty items, things Lowe’s wouldn’t have. But, uh, people aren’t building. The store’s barely breaking even. It’s tight. Alice has a partial and some money from my great-aunt Alice. She’s got a private duty nurse’s aid job this summer too. But I…well…the football thing may work out, but I’m not my brother.”
I twist to face him. “There’s got to be something, Jase. Some other kind of scholarship…student loan. There’s something out there, I’m sure.”
I think of Mrs. Garrett trying to limit how much juice the kids pour. “Duff, you’ll never drink that whole glass. Pour a little, then refill if you’re really thirsty.” Then of Mom, who makes gourmet dishes on a whim after watching the Food Network, food she won’t be home long enough to eat, and that Tracy, and now just me, will never be able to finish.
“There’s a way, Jase. We’ll find it.”
He shrugs, looking slightly less bleak as his eyes rest on me. “Sailor Supergirl to my rescue now?”
I salute him. “At your service.”
“Yeah?” He leans over, ducking his head so our noses touch. “Could I get a list of those services?”