Page 30 of The Lookback

That car’s not David’s, either. It’s Ethan. When the truck doors start opening, Beth, Izzy, Whitney, and Gabe all pour out of his old truck with him.

I can’t help laughing. “But apparently everyone’s here, with or without an invite.”

“No.” Mandy hops to her feet and pelts toward the door. “No. You all have to go.” She’s making a shooing motion, but Donna ignores her, shoving past her and into the room. “I have got to feed the baby, and when anyone else is around watching her, she can’t focus enough to eat. When David came by, she was already starving, but then I couldn’t think until I knew where you were and what’s going on, and on the way here, I saw some kind of insanity going on at Ethan’s house. I need all the details, but I’ll just be back to hear them in just a moment.” Then she ducks into the first guest room on the left, where I’m planning to stay, and more people start plowing through the door like a herd of wildebeests.

Ethan and the other kids don’t even pause before they just run through, as if Mandy’s not even trying to stop them.

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” I whisper, “but I think you’re going to have to tell your story again, starting from the beginning. Maybe try and come up with a short version of it. Or.” I smile. “I know. You could write it all down and pass it out on fliers. That might be faster.” Needling her is so fun. I’m not sure why, but it is.

“Why is that huge, ugly giraffe scowling at me?” Izzy asks.

“Whoa,” Gabe says. “When you get tired of them, I want the elephants.”

“Forget the elephants,” Izzy says. “I want the Eiffel tower.”

Ethan’s stupid puppy came too, apparently, and he shoots right through the door, chasing Jed the pig through Emery’s legs and toward the back door.

When David pulls up outside, I can’t help laughing. I’m wearing Mandy’s jumpsuit, which is much, much too short. She gave me slippers that had no shot of fitting my feet, so I’m standing on her wooden floor, barefoot. My sopping wet hair’s dripping on the jumpsuit, turning it bright purple instead of blue on the shoulders, and no one has even said a word about any of that.

They’re all too busy trying to figure out why a circus threw up inside Mandy’s house.

Where we’ve all shown up uninvited.

Only in Birch Creek would something like this happen, where all these people I’m not related to in any way act like we’re family. As David walks up the steps of the porch, his eyes take in my ensemble slowly. “What on earth are you wearing?”

“I should have asked you to bring me some clothes from your place,” I say. “And I would have,if I knew you were coming.”

“I’ve already sent my parents to the resort and called pest control to tell them to check out my place.” David pauses. “I figured you’d want to stay there—at the resort. But you came here? Mandy’s house?”

“That’s because the people told me that hotels were the problem.” I shake my head. “I’m not going to stay anywhere like a hotel until it’s been checked.”

“Wait,” Amanda says. “Are you saying the resort might?—”

“Already on it,” I say. “They’ll be by to check the rooms later tonight.”

David looks around. “What on earth is going on in here? Why are so many people here, and who shot a tiger?”

There’s a totem pole in the corner, a six-foot-tall wooden giraffe, a giant Eiffel Tower painting that’s far too big for the room and also not well done, a giant blue and white vase that looks like a terrible Dutch knock-off, strange origami animals where there used to be glasses on a shelf, and David asks about the rug. Of course he does. “Mandy was about to explain all that, I think. But before we get sidetracked, is there any chance my overnight bag from our trip to New York is still in your trunk?”

David frowns. “Probably.”

“Excellent.”

He tosses me his keys, but before I can rush out to grab a change of clothes, I realize that the conversation has carried on around us.

“Oh, man,” Emery’s saying. “You’re going to have to tell them all the reason why you redecorated your family room.”

“And kitchen,” Maren says. “This is going to be great.”

“Get out,” Mandy says. “All of you.”

“Stop,” Amanda says. “You know you’re going to tell them—it’s Donna and Beth and the kids.”

Mandy’s face flushes red, and she looks like she’s about to cry. If I’ve ever seen someone who looks like they’re dangling by a fraying rope, it’s her. “Alright,” I say. “We’re all here right now because of me.”

“What?” Beth asks. “Why?”

“I brought bedbugs back from New York, and now we have to treat the house and burn all our stuff. Just look at what I’m wearing. Why do you think I need that change of clothes?”

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