53
Will
"I brought you an early Christmas present, Mom."
My mother pokes her head out of the kitchen and a smile breaks across her face that is too wide and too sudden to be fake. "Olivia?" she gasps. "What happened to your trip?"
"My plans changed," she says hesitantly. "Is that okay?"
My mother pulls her into a big hug. "Okay? Of course it's okay. It's better than okay. I'm thrilled."
Brendan walks out in a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, running a hand through his riotous hair. "Holy crap you people are loud." He blinks when he sees Olivia and quickly wakes up, looking a little too delighted to find her here. I step in front of her. I'm not sure why.
"Hey, Houdini," Brendan laughs, "you realize that didn't make her invisible, right?"
My mother manages to actually get a decent breakfast into Olivia for once, and then suggests I take her climbing.
I shake my head. "I need to take a look at the combine. That engine isn't going to last us another season with the noise it's making."
"I'll take her," Brendan says, and something ugly winnows its way up inside me. Yeah, Brendan knows how to climb. I taught him myself. Doesn't mean I trust him.
"Not a chance," I reply. "I don't need my lead runner out for the rest of the season because you didn't secure something right."
"The season is over," Olivia argues.
"Have you actually forgotten you have the Cooper Invitational in two weeks?"
"I haven't forgotten, but winning the Cooper doesn't get us back into regionals."
"It would've been great to make regionals," I reply, "but this race is far more important for you. The Cooper gets national media attention."
"So it's settled," Brendan says to me. "You don't have time to take her and I do. Have fun playing with your engine."
Asshole.
Maybe if he'd offer to fix the fucking engine, I'd actually have time.
54
Olivia
"I don't want to climb," Brendan announces as soon as we get in his car.
"Then why'd you offer to take me?"
"Just trying to piss Will off. Mission accomplished. Did you see his face?"
I roll my eyes - it's easy to piss Will off. That had nothing to do with me. "So what are we going to do instead?"
He grins. "Something a hell of a lot more fun than climbing."
He takes me to a small one-street town about 20 minutes away, where we proceed to drink for the next five hours and then spend another two hours walking around while we try to sober up. It's dinner time when we get home, and when Dorothy asks us how climbing was we both start to laugh.
"Am I missing something?" asks Will, that muscle in his jaw popping.
"Yeah," says Brendan, grinning at me. "You're missing a whole lot of something."
The next morning I'm up at six to help Dorothy. I don't have a hard time rising early, since I do it every day, but I do have a hard time rising early in order to cook.
Dorothy hands me a bag of potatoes as I stagger into the kitchen and I look at them blankly. "Um … what do I do with these?"
"Make the mashed potatoes."
I look at the bag in my hand and back to her. "Uh, okay. Do I bake them first or something?" Like I said, my cooking skills are unbelievably limited. Aside from eggs, everything I know how to make involves ground beef and spaghetti sauce.
She laughs. "Is that a serious question?"
"Well, they need to be soft, right?" I scowl. "I've only made mashed potatoes from a box."
"You've never seen anyone make them?"
I shrug. "My grandmother stopped cooking when I was pretty young, and this is the only other kitchen I've been in."
///
She turns to me, her eyes sad. "How is that possible, Olivia? You've been on your own since you were 16."
"It is what it is," I say, wanting this conversation to end rapidly. "So what do I do with them?"
"Peel them, quarter them, boil them. We'll start with that."
"Seems like a lot of potatoes for four people."
"Peter's coming too," she says, as if that explains why she's got me working with about 40 pounds of potatoes. I'm tempted to tease her about the fact that she blushed as soon as she said Peter's name, but I decide against it. "How old were you when you took over the cooking for your grandmother?" she asks.
I pause. It's a casual question that does not come with a casual response. My first impulse is to shut the conversation down. Old enough, I could tell her, but I don't. "I was 11."
I focus on the potatoes in my hand, the ache caused by the cold water, even though I know she's stopped what she was doing completely. "What did you cook for Thanksgiving?" she asks quietly when she finally resumes her work.
I shrug. "Same as I cooked every other day. She didn't really know the difference and it's not like we celebrated Thanksgiving anyway."
"So you've never had a Thanksgiving meal?"
I pause. "Yeah, I think maybe with my mom. I remember her making a pie." A shudder passes through me. My mom is smiling in that memory, interested in me, explaining how a pumpkin is considered a fruit because it has seeds. In that memory she doesn't seem like the kind of person who just abandons her child, and I prefer the monster I've created in my mind. It makes it at least possible that some of the fault rests with her.
"I always wanted a girl." Dorothy smiles at me. "Especially for times like this."
"You could probably still have one," I reply. Maybe it's just good genes, but Dorothy looks young. Too young to have grown sons, actually.
"Shop's closed. And besides, I have you now, don't I?"
Will wanders in an hour later, looking adorably sleepy and unshaven, and hot. Who the hell looks totally doable just out of bed?
"Out," says his mother.
"Coffee," he replies, scrubbing a hand over his face. "You're not getting me out of here without coffee." He glances at me and grins. "My mom trusted you with a knife, did she?"
I narrow my eyes at him. "That was before she knew you'd be in the kitchen. Hope that coffee's fast. I'm feeling stabby all of a sudden."
He hops on the counter and watches me peel potatoes. "For the record, I'd like my potatoes without any of your fingers in there."
"Keep jabbering and you'll be getting them with an extra serving of spit, my friend."
The next time he comes in he's dressed and shaved, with Brendan behind him. "We demand food," Brendan tells his mom.
"Have some cereal," she says.
"Cereal? We're growing boys."
"If the two of you grow any more, you won't fit in the house. Out."
"Mom," Will whines, sounding so young it makes me laugh, "we're starving." When that fails, he turns to me. "How about sneaking your favorite coach a few of those rolls?"
I feign surprise. "I didn't know Peter was already here." He laughs and gives me the finger at the same time, which is decidedly un-coach-like.
By 1pm, everything is done, or nearly so. "I guess it's time for us to get ready," Dorothy says, removing her apron. She leans out of the kitchen and yells at the guys to go get dressed. They both make similar sounds of protest, which she ignores. "We all kind of dress up, by the way. The boys hate it and every year they complain, but a rule's a rule."
"Oh," I pause. "I didn't bring anything. Just jeans."
"Well, as it happens, I bought you something," she says hesitantly. "I hope you don't mind. I just saw it in the store and thought, ‘Olivia would look gorgeous in that.'"
"You shouldn't have done that." They're nearly as strapped for cash as I am.
"I always wanted a little girl to dress up, and you're the closest thing to a daughter I've ever had, so damned if anyone's going to tell me I can't buy her a few dresses."
I follow her to her room feeling nothing but dread. I figure there's a 90% chance she's bought me something I wouldn't be caught dead in, and I'm going to have to sit through dinner with Will and Brendan making fun of me the whole time. In fact, I'm already annoyed at both of them for it in advance.
///
While she goes to her closet, I pick up a picture of Will that sits on her dresser. He's a gangly little towhead, standing shirtless by a lake with a big crooked smile and a few missing teeth. I'm still smiling at it when she emerges.
"Wasn't he sweet?" she asks.
"Yeah," I sigh. He was adorable. There's something so free and unencumbered about him in the photo that it kind of breaks my heart. I've seen glimpses of it when we're climbing, but almost never outside of that.