Page 27 of My Life with the Walter Boys
“I didn’t mean to ruin anything,” I tried to explain, “but after my shower, I really needed to, um, cover up.”
George narrowed his eyes in suspicion, as if he knew something fishy was going on. “Didn’t you remember a towel?”
This was the point of no return. I could either lie, letting Isaac get away with it, or explain the entire story so my actions would be justified. But if I told Katherine and George what really happened, Isaac would most likely be pissed, and that could come back to haunt me. On the other hand, if I rolled over and let it go, the boys might take that as an open invitation to torment me. I risked a quick glance at Isaac. His lip twitched as he stared back, daring me to challenge him. I turned back to George.
“Isaac took it,” I said, the accusation rushing out of my mouth. “And my clothes. He took those too.”
It took George a moment to react, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he processed my words. “What?” he finally roared, his chair flying back as he shot up from the table.
Two seconds later, Benny did the same. “What?” he shouted, throwing back his own chair and mimicking his dad. Next to him, Zack started to laugh, while Parker pointed her finger at her cousin and taunted, “Somebody’s in trouble.”
George ignored all three and turned his rage toward Isaac. “Youstoleher towel? You went into the bathroom while she was showering?”
“Whoa, Uncle G! That’s not what happened,” Isaac said. From the look on his face, I knew he was starting to regret his actions this morning.
“I swear, boy, if you’re lying to me—”
“I’m not. I promise!” Isaac responded, feigning innocence.
I could have kicked him. “That’s not true,” I said, my voice high. “Isaac said he bet Cole five dollars that I would rather miss school than come out of the bathroom naked. They were going to leave me trapped in there and go without me.”
Cole threw his hands up in the air. “Hey, don’t drag me into this. I’ve got nothing to do with it.”
Glancing around the table, George gauged everyone’s reactions, which ranged from Alex’s high eyebrows to Danny’s blank face. He looked like he was physically holding himself back. His hands, which were gripping the edge of the table, had gone stark white.
“George,” Katherine whispered softly, putting her hand over his. He glanced down at her contact, and somehow that seemed to calm him down, because he let a breath of hot air hiss out of his mouth.
“With your colorful record, Isaac,” he said at last, trying to keep his cool, “I have a hard time believing you.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Lee said, coming to the aid of his brother. It was the first thing he’d said since ratting me out, and I could tell from the look on his face that he was enjoying the chaos he’d caused. “He was in our room all morning trying to get a paper done. I saw him.”
“Yeah, right. Isaac doesn’t care about homework—” Nathan started, but Lee elbowed him in the side and he shut his mouth.
“Can anyone verify either Jackie or Lee’s story?” Katherine asked. Zack and Benny raised their hands, and she sighed. “Can anybody else, someone who wasn’t at the dentist, tell me what happened?”
As I looked around the table, trying to find a friendly face, none of the boys would meet my eyes. Even Nathan ignored me. His mouth was pressed tight into the smallest of lines, and he concentrated on stabbing a few stray peas rolling around his plate with a fork.
For the first time since I arrived at the Walters’, the house was deadly silent, and I realized no one was going to stand up for me. “Katherine,” I said, adopting my father’s businesslike tone. “I’d ask Jack and Jordan what they know, or rather, what they caught on camera. I’m sure that will help resolve the issue. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be excused.”
Without waiting for an answer, I stood up, threw my napkin on the table, and walked out of the kitchen.
When Katherine came to apologize for her boys’ behavior later that night, she found me sitting at the windowsill, staring out into the backyard. By then it was dark. I could only see slivers of moonlight reflecting off the pool, and the grass beyond the deck had been swallowed up by the shadows as if it never existed. Half an hour before, I’d heard angry shouts from the kitchen, and judging by George’s tone, one of the boys was in deep trouble. Now everything was still.
“It’s strange,” I told her when she came and stood next to me. “How empty it feels here.”
“Empty?” she asked, a look of concern on her face.
I offered her a small smile, knowing that she’d misunderstood me. “Back home, when I looked out my window,” I started to explain, “even if it was nighttime, there was always something out there: light from the lampposts that ran along the streets, a stray taxi screeching around a corner, someone walking their dog. The dark is so thick here that when it gets quiet like this, there doesn’t seem to be anything out there except emptiness.”
“I suppose our nightlife is a bit more subtle,” Katherine said, looking out the window with me.
We both fell quiet then, and I focused on the darkness. Every once in a while I could make out the yellow blink of a firefly, but then the glow would vanish like it had never been there, and I was left with the feeling that my mind was playing tricks on me.
“Jackie,” Katherine said after a minute, “I’m sorry about how my boys treated you this morning and at dinner. It was completely unacceptable.”
There was nothing for me to say back to her, so I nodded my head. Upon my suggestion, Katherine had confiscated the twins’ camera and gone through the video clips. Not only had they caught me rushing out of the bathroom in the curtain, but the twins also recorded Isaac picking the lock on the bathroom door and stealing my clothes, so he had been caught red-handed. She apologized again, promising that everyone involved was being punished, and when I told her I would pay for the damage I caused, she laughed. The cost of the curtain was coming out of Isaac’s allowance.
She stayed for another fifteen minutes or so and chatted, asking me questions about my first two days of school and how I was settling in. I figured it was her way of checking up on me, making sure that everything was okay.
