My Life Next Door(52)
“Hullo Nan. Mason.” His voice gets an edge as he greets Tim, and I see Tim’s jaw muscles clench. Then Jase moves to my side and slips an arm tight around my waist.
We wind up in the backyard, because everything inside my house is so hard and formal, no comfortable place to sit and lounge. Jase lies on his back in the grass on our sloping lawn, and I lie, crossways, with my head on his stomach, ignoring the occasional flick of Nan’s eyes.
We don’t talk much for a while. Jase and Tim idly discuss people they knew from soccer in middle school. I find myself studying the boys together, wondering what my mother would see. There’s Jase with his olive skin and broad shoulders, his air of being older than seventeen, nearly a man. Then there’s Tim, so pale, dark circles under his eyes, freckles standing out in strong relief, rangy skinny legs cross-legged, his face handsome but pale and angular. Jase’s jeans are stained with grease, and his T-shirt is frayed at the collar, stretched out of shape. Tim’s in crisp khakis, with a blue-striped oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves. If Mom was asked who was “dangerous,” she would immediately point to Jase, who fixes things, and saves animals, and saves me. Not Tim, who, as I watch, is casually crushing a daddy longlegs.
Wiping his hand on the grass, Tim says, “I need to get my GED, or I’ll either be shipped to the foreign legion by my parents, or spend the rest of my life—which will then be very short—living in their basement.”
“My dad did that—got a GED,” Jase offers, playing with my hair. “You could talk to him.”
“Your sister Alice didn’t do it too, by any chance?”
Jase’s lips twitch. “Nope.”
“Bummer. I also need a job so I don’t have to spend my days at home with Ma, watching her figure out new uses for the Pumper.”
“There’s an opening at Mom’s campaign,” I say. “She needs all the help she can get now that she’s totally distracted by Clay Tucker.”
“Who the hell’s Clay Tucker?”
“The…” Nan lowers her voice, even though all she says is: “…younger man Samantha’s mother’s dating.”
“Your ma’s dating?” Tim looks shocked. “I thought she pretty much confined herself to a vibrator and the shower nozzle since your dad screwed her over.”
“Timmy.” Nan turns scarlet.
“There’s always a job to do at my dad’s store.” Jase stretches and yawns, unfazed. “Restocking, placing orders. Nothing too exciting, but—”
“Right.” Tim’s eyes are cast down as he tears at a hangnail on his thumb. “I’m sure that’s just what your pop needs—a plastered dropout stock boy with a jones for illegal substances.”
Jase props himself up on one elbow, looking squarely at him. “Well, provided that stock boy isn’t still drinking, et cetera, taking my girlfriend on a joyride when he’s hammered. Ever again.” His voice is flat. He watches Tim for another moment, then lies back down.
Tim turns, if possible, slightly paler, then flushes. “Uh…Well…I…uh…” He glances at me, at Nan, then returns his attention to the hangnail. Silence.
“Well, restocking and stuff might not be thrilling, but that’s probably a good thing,” Nan says after a minute or two. “What do you think, Timmy?”
Tim’s still focusing on his thumb. Finally, he looks up. “Unless Alice does restocking too, preferably spending most of her time on a ladder in those little short-shorts, I’m thinking I’ll talk to gorgeous Grace about politics. I like politics. You get to manipulate people and lie and cheat and it’s all good.”
“From what I read, Samantha’s mom prefers to think of it as working for the common weal.” Jase stretches his arms over his head, yawning. I sit up, surprised to hear Jase recite Mom’s last campaign slogan, the one Clay Tucker mocked so mercilessly. Jase and I never mention politics. But he must have been paying attention to hers all along.
“Cool. Sign me up. I’ll be a cog in the common weal. With my track record, I’ll probably be able to screw up all three branches of government in about a week and a half,” Tim says. “Does hot Alice have any interest in politics?”
Mom gets back early, luckily after Nan and Tim have trudged home and Jase is again training. She has a meet-and-greet in East Stonehill tonight and wants me to come along. “Clay says that since I’m focusing on family, we really need to see more of mine.” I stand next to her at Moose Hall for approximately eight thousand years, repeating “Yes, I’m so proud of my mother. Please vote for her,” while she shakes hand after hand after hand.