The Moon and More(59)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“If that’s what he was feeling, he should have said as much,” I managed finally. “He’s a grown-up. He can use his words.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed. “Again: not handled well. But he’s here now, right? Maybe he wants to make amends somehow.”

“Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath.”

He ate a shrimp puff. “Sorry. My optimism can be very annoying.”

Hearing this, I again had a flash of Benji, telling me he was hard to entertain. Now that I thought about it, they were pretty similar, at least by the numbers: parent professions, where they were raised. There was probably something meaningful to them both converging on me simultaneously. Not that I was in the mood, right then, to figure out what it was.

“It’s not annoying,” I told him. “Just different. Like the Cheez Doodle thing.”

He smiled at me, then got up, coming over to where I was sitting, his glass in hand. He held it out, and I did the same. “To optimism. And junk food.”

We clinked glasses and drank. Then he leaned down, cupping my chin in his hand, and kissed me. I closed my eyes, letting myself forget where I was and what I was doing, temporarily, to just sink into it. It was almost easy to do, except for the fine grains of sand I felt blow up and over us every now and again. Light and drifting, tiny granules you couldn’t even see. But as always, they were there.

*   *   *

The next morning, when I woke up, someone was moving the furniture.

I could hear it immediately, the sound of large objects being pushed and pulled. I pressed my pillow over my ears, trying to dip back into dreaming, but no luck. Saturday morning, seven thirty. I was up.

More scraping, more dragging, followed by a large thud as something hit the floor. I threw off the covers, got out of bed, and went to investigate. When I pushed open my door, however, it moved only about an inch before meeting something solid and refusing to go farther.

I tried again. No luck. Finally, by using my entire body weight, I managed to get it open enough to see out, only to find myself facing the glass doors of the breakfront from our dining room.

“What the hell?” I said, to my own face, dimly reflected back at me. It wasn’t just the china cabinet that had relocated; there was also the coffee table, the dining room table, several chairs, and my dad’s beloved recliner—all packed into the narrow hall outside my bedroom, as if, en masse, they were making a run for it.

“Hello?” I called down the hallway towards the stairs. With all the noise, though, nobody heard me. I considered just staying put until whatever project was going on was finished, but then my tendency towards claustrophobia hit. I tried the door again. It moved another millimeter. The window it was.

There is probably something more humiliating than climbing out of your own bedroom window in full view of the neighbors early on a weekend morning. But really, I was hard-pressed to think of what it might be as I wriggled through, landed on my behind in the damp grass in my pajamas, and turned to see that Mr. Varance, the elderly widower to our right, had caught the whole show. He raised up his rose clippers in greeting; I waved back. Then I got to my feet and went around the house to the back door.

My mother was at the sink, already dressed, rinsing out a coffee cup. She didn’t see me until she was turning off the water, at which point she shrieked, jumping backwards and disappearing, momentarily, from my view. When she popped up again, she was pissed.

“What are you doing?” she huffed at me, through the glass. “You scared me to death!”

“I was barricaded in my room,” I replied. “The window was the only way out.”

In response, she turned, looking behind her at my dad, who was at that very moment carrying the couch onto the side deck. Morris, at the opposite end, was already outside. “Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I think he thought—”

“Can you let me in, please?” I interrupted her, aware of my damp backside and the fact that Mr. Varance could probably still see it.

She scurried over to the door and unlocked it, then held it open as I came in. “I think he thought,” she said again, “that you were already gone.”

“My car is here,” I pointed out. “And it’s not even eight on a Saturday.”

“I’m not driving this train,” she said, holding up one hand. “Take it up with him.”

When I turned to my dad to do just that, I instead found myself facing Morris, who was grinning. “Nice jammies,” he said. “You always sleep in the grass?”

I looked down. There were green clippings all across my tank top and midsection. Of course the lawn had been mowed yesterday. “What are you even doing here?” I asked him.

“Working,” he replied, as if this was something he actually did, ever.

“All right, let’s get that love seat out and that should do it,” my dad said, walking back into the room. When he saw me, he said, “Whoa. What happened to you?”

“I had to climb out the window,” I replied.

“Why’s that?” I just looked at him. “Oh, right. The hallway. Well, you knew the floors were getting started today. Can’t do them with the furniture here.”

“How was I supposed to know that, again?”

He bent over one end of the love seat, gesturing for Morris to get the other one. “About the floors?”

“Yes.”

“Because,” he said, squaring his shoulders and lifting, “we did the trim, then painted. Floors are next.”

As if I had some kind of flow chart in my mind, keeping up with every step of this never-ending remodel. “I’m not a contractor, Dad.”

“No,” he said, holding up his end of the couch, “but you are in our way. Scoot, now, we’ve got work to do.”

I moved aside as they passed by, taking the love seat out the door I’d come in. My mom, standing across the empty room, held up two coffee mugs, a questioning look of her face. When I nodded, she gestured for me to follow her down the hall to Amber’s room.

“You’d think,” I said as we walked, “he could leave me a note or something.”

“I think the plan was to let you know when you got home last night,” she replied. “But you were . . . late.”

Whoops. I bit my lip, remembering how far past curfew I’d actually walked in from the First True Date the evening before. Late enough that my dad had gone to bed, something he rarely did before everyone was in and accounted for.