Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,36
I think of the Kool-Aid shower, wonder if there are stains, and if she knows it somehow. “A broken piece of furniture.” The deck chair we broke two summers ago. The one Nadine replaced with the unicorn. “I find pots in the wrong houses, and cabinets stocked with the wrong things.”
“We share,” Mom says, her voice soft and shocked.
“Because you are too comfortable.” Nadine’s face is cold. “This isn’t your house. It’s mine.”
Kris looks like she might throw up. I know what she’s thinking: for two months out of the summer, these are our houses. We don’t think about the other people who stay here after us. These houses wait for us all year. They’re ours. Our houses on our lake.
“Nadine, we’ve always paid for any issues,” Dad says. That makes my face heat red. I didn’t realize they were paying for issues that Sidney and I likely caused. Why haven’t they said anything to us? Have they been skimming the money out of my college fund or something?
“Yes, but I have to fix them. I have to worry about the state of things for the next renters.” She glances out the window toward my house. “I have to wonder what is happening in these houses.”
Tom rolls his eyes but she can’t see it. “This is awfully extreme, I’m sure we can—”
Nadine shakes her head briskly. “Forty-eight hours and I want you out. You’ll get a full refund for the next seven weeks.”
Dad’s face pales and Mom looks like she might cry. I might cry. Or scream. Sidney is sitting, still and quiet, just like my mom. They both look like they may burst into tears at any moment.
“Where are we supposed to go? It’s peak season, we’ll never find rentals.” Tom’s voice is still calm, his face a mask of cool fury.
“Nadine, please,” Kris says. “We’ve been coming here for years, this is a second home to us.”
Nadine’s eyes look at Kris sympathetically, and for a moment I think she’s going to cave. But then her chin lifts just slightly and her face is hard again. And I may be imagining it but I think her eyes settle on Sidney for just a second too long to be comfortable, before she turns back to the four adults now muttering obscenities under their breath. “Forty-eight hours.”
Sidney
After dinner, Mom, Dad, Sylvie, and Greg convene in our living room, and Asher and I are out on the deck after washing dishes in silence. We sit in white plastic lounge chairs, both of us avoiding the unicorn. Probably because it’s a reminder of how our neurotic feuding has led to this. I came out here thinking it would be a good spot to eavesdrop without being obvious, but once the angry voices died down it turned out I couldn’t hear anything at all.
“This is our fault.” I’ve been thinking it since Nadine barged into our house, and I can’t help but say it out loud.
“Ours?” Asher mutters, and it’s the first time he’s really spoken to me since Nadine walked in on us.
Defensiveness wells up inside me, guilt scraping at my throat.
“I’m gonna cruise around the lake and look for rental signs.”
“Can I come with?” I hate how desperate, almost panicked my voice sounds.
There’s a long stretch of silence, and I’m expecting more annoyance from him. More anger. Because no matter what I say out loud, this is my fault. There should be smoke coming out of Asher’s ears, for how hard he’s thinking about this simple question. As if he’s just been asked to go on a boat ride with a serial killer. I don’t even know why I want to go. Maybe I just don’t want to be alone out here when our parents finally emerge. The guilt is so much easier when it’s directed at us, and not just me.
The silence is killing me, so I finally break it. “I want to hit something.”
“Not it.” His eyes finally swing from the imaginary spot on the lake where they’ve been fixed and land on me. The lightness in his voice surprises me.
I roll my eyes. “And ruin that pretty face of yours? I would never.”
Asher smirks. “You think I’m pretty.” The familiar snark in his voice relaxes something inside me just a fraction.
“You think you’re pretty.” I hear the whir of a blender and look back at the cabin. It’s not fair that they get to drown their sorrows in peach daiquiris and we just have to suffer. With each other.