I guess I should have shut the door so nobody could see or hear me, because while I’m staring through the binoculars, I happen to mumble, “Oh crap,” just as my dad is walking up the stairs to check on me.
“Uh, what did you just say, young lady?” he asks as he steps into the room. “You know I don’t like that word.” I quickly try to hide the binoculars and wipe the guilty look off my face, but it’s too late. “And what, exactly, are you up to?”
“I was just…I mean…Ann’s home. Parked outside.”
He checks his watch, then calls downstairs. “Hey, Emily, can you come up here for a second?”
While we’re waiting for Mom, I keep trying to steal peeks out the window to see if anything else has happened.
Twenty seconds later, Mom reaches the bedroom door, trailed by Cade. “What’s wrong?”
Dad folds his arms. “One of our daughters is spying on another of our daughters. And she swore.”
“I said ‘crap’!” I snap defensively. “That’s not swearing. Dad, you say it all the time.”
“Only when I’m mad.”
“Well…I’m mad.”
Mom steps closer to me and looks out the window at the car. “Bree, there’s no need to be mad. Or jealous. Just let Ann enjoy herself.”
I fold my arms defiantly. “Look closer, Mom. I think they’re fighting.”
My mother puts the binoculars to her eyes and leans in close to the window. “Boy, she doesn’t look too happy, does she? I hope her blood pressure is OK.”
Dad puts his forehead against the glass too. “Should we go out and say something to them?”
“No!” gushes Mom. “Leave them be. Maybe they’ll kiss and make up.”
“Gross,” Cade mumbles.
“Oh, they’re getting out of the car,” says Mom. “How cute! He’s making her get back in so he can open her door.”
“But she doesn’t seem too happy about it,” I note. “Look at the scowl on her face. Even without the binoculars, I can see—Duck! She saw us!”
Instinctively, the whole family crouches down below the level of the windowsill. A few seconds later the front door opens and Ann calls up the stairs. “Hello! I know you’re all up there spying on me. You can come down now.”
“Phew,” says Cade. “That wasn’t long enough for a kiss on the doorstep.”
Dad smiles and pats Cade on the back. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
When we come downstairs, Ann is waiting for us in the entryway, still frowning.
“Uh-oh,” says Mom delicately. “I smell trouble.”
Ann’s frown deepens. “It’s fish, actually.”
The scent hits all of our noses right about the same time. “So the date really stunk, eh?” says Dad, trying to keep things light.
“No. It was great. I just…spilled fish on me.”
Mom cocks her head to the side, smiling. “What were you doing with fish?”
“Oh, like you don’t know. We fed them to sea lions.”
“How would I know that?”
“Because it’s on my bucket list, on my bed. It’s OK, though, I’m glad you told him. It was really fun. Well, most of it was fun.”
“You wrote on your bed?” asks Dad.
“You wanted to feed sea lions?” asks Mom.
Ann isn’t buying it. “Whatever. I know you told him.”
“You really stink,” I tell her. “You should go change your clothes.”
Dad agrees with a nod. “Good idea. Ann, you go up and change, then we want to hear all about your fish story.”
Ann turns to her left. “Tanner, are you staying or going?”
“Staying. At least until you tell them.”
“Fine,” she huffs, then marches up the stairs to her room. Five minutes later she returns in sweats. “You didn’t say anything, did you?” she asks Tanner as she sits down next to him on the couch.
“Nope.”
Dad crosses one leg over the other. “So what’s going on?”
“It’s nothing. We shouldn’t even be talking about it. In fact I wouldn’t if Tanner wasn’t forcing me to.”
A small smile tugs at the corner of Tanner’s mouth.
“So here’s the deal,” continues Ann. “Not a big deal, though. Tanner took me to feed sea lions in Astoria, which was way cool. There’s this dock there with a big herd of them, and Tanner had a bucket of fish to—”
“Herring,” Tanner clarifies.
“Right. Herring. And so I threw one of the fish to them, and the thing caught it in midair—totally awesome—but then I sort of…stumbled, and fell on the bucket of fish, and they got all over me. I was lying in them, actually. On the dock. So then…I was wet and smelled like fish, so we came home early.”