ass before I come. You probably smell like the back of the Vengabus. Noon.”
She hung up before I could think of a decent comeback, and I turned to the kids and Mom. “Everyone up for a picnic at the Creek?”
I had to cover my ears to drown out the squealing.
THEIR OLDEST FAMILY property, the Creek—which included a creek, a lake, and the pond that had almost killed us—was an hour out of town, but traffic was light for a long weekend and we were out and unpacked before one in the afternoon. Mom had begged off, probably to enjoy a house without us for a while. I couldn’t blame her.
Chris and Brent, who should never have been raised in a city, and who had already announced their intention to become scientists like Johnny, vanished into the bush with a “sample jar” and a “net,” hastily kludged together before we left. Carla collapsed onto the high-tech picnic blanket, sighing happily in the silence.
“I’m so glad the boys are gone,” she said to Johnny.
Johnny chuckled. “They only get louder, don’t they, Cookie? I bet you don’t remember when you were little, and you asked me to invent something to ‘make the babies be quiet.’”
“I would still want it if you made it now,” she said under her breath, darting me a sly glance. “I didn’t know I was going to end up with all brothers.”
“Ew.”
“Ew.”
“I’m gonna sue you both for libel,” I said.
“Slander, Nicky.”
We got the food out—catered sandwiches, salads, juiceboxes, Nanaimo bars, everything sealed tightly in plastic clamshells.
Rutger stiffly passed me a big thermos of icewater. “Please keep an eye on the children. There are no safety measures at this property.”
“Good to see you too,” I said, and Johnny laughed. It was good to see him, though.
He and Johnny were a package deal, had been ever since she was six and discovered him as a physics student at Heidelberg University. She’d paid for his doctorate, given him his own lab, and asked him to start coming as a technical advisor on her lecture tours—cries of “babysitter” and “pedophile” notwithstanding.
Years later, he had settled into a kind of in-between space between advisor and assistant. He scheduled lectures and flights, proofread papers, filtered her emails, dealt with the 24/7 management of her labs and facilities, booked telescope time, negotiated research contracts, dealt with zoning and environmental permits, and that was just the stuff I knew about. They never struck me as friends or even really friendly, and I knew part of his coolness towards me was simply resenting the time I took away from her science, as if I had bullied my way into her ivory tower—but he was solid, smart, dependable, ever-present. When he was around, you felt like nothing could go wrong. A flat tire, a bee sting, a meteorite strike, all fell within his purview. Anyway, it was good to have a qualified adult out here.
He sat on a corner of the blanket, fat and handsome, like a bronze statue in his monotone khakis and polo shirt, and ostentatiously fixed his gaze on the creek downslope from us, watching for kids to fall in. I grinned at him, knowing he wouldn’t see it.
Johnny said, “So, big plans for the summer?”
I gave her a look. “Keep the grass cut and the kids from killing each other. You?”
“You know what I meant.”
She meant that she wanted me to apply for postsecondary now that I had graduated; we’d had a tense talk about it last year, before she left. It had been so awkward, in fact, that I had wondered whether it had actually ended the friendship. We hadn’t talked for a week afterwards. I kept telling myself: She’s busy, she’s busy, you’re being paranoid, no one’s that sensitive, you’re both grownups here. You’re both almost grownups. Act like a damn grownup. No one would stop being friends with someone for that. And of course at the end of the week she had called and we went to see The Fast and the Furious, and everything seemed fine. Was that about to happen again?
“It wouldn’t even have to be university,” she said, watching my face, where everything I was thinking must have been printed like a tattoo. “Even a two-year diploma at Grant Mac, or NAIT. Your earning potential would—”
“I know that. I’m not stupid.”
She ducked her head. “I just meant...”
I sighed. “Listen, don’t let’s ruin the day by rehashing this, okay? The kids were so freaking excited. See you again, see the