Page 32 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
I dropped my bag at the foot of the stairs, minus my copy ofRunwaymagazine featuring the new Miu Miu line, and headed for the kitchen, skirting junk as I went. With Delphine’s dinner “cooking,” I dove back into my article, absorbed in the beautiful collection. I didn’t want to put it down when the microwave dinged and sent me back to Delphine.
“You found that owl picture yet?” Delphine asked.
“No, ma’am. It’s not in the sitting room.” That room was in the best shape of all the downstairs rooms, and I’d sorted through every box the owl could remotely fit in.
“Start looking upstairs.”
Upstairs? Well, well, well.
Mom and I moved in here after the cancer had weakened her enough to ask Delphine for help. I had explored the upstairs rooms like they were my private treasure-hunting ground while Mom slept and tried to heal. And when we quit going to the doctor’s office and the hospice nurses started coming instead, I’d lost myself playing in the piles of eclectic junk. One room was mostly full of boxed papers. Toys littered the other room. A rusty tricycle. A bunch of mangy stuffed animals. Leftovers from Remy’s childhood, the cousin who had died with my dad.
Delphine had freaked out when she found me playing with a tarnished bugle I had unearthed in a box of worn Buster Brown shoes. I still remembered my terror when Delphine yanked the bugle from my hand. “You are swamp trash like your father was. Don’t you touch Remy’s things, ever. Ever!” she had yelled, spittle flying.
Apparently, the price for Delphine to put aside her emotional pain and send me wading through the forbidden piles now was somewhere around thirty thousand dollars, the delusional amountAttic Cashhad convinced her she’d get for her dumb owl poster.
“Isaidyou can start looking upstairs.” She scowled, her wrinkles deepening, until I headed for the stairs.
I bit back an argument. If I didn’t go owl hunting, I’d be on fast forward duty with the TV all night.
Upstairs didn’t stink.
Upstairs kind of sounded like a good idea.
* * *
The lock on Remy’s old room, although rusty, turned easily enough. The twilight filtering through heavy plaid curtains hinted at dark hulking shapes as I groped for the light switch. More stuff crowded the space than when I had last seen it during the Buster Brown blowup nine years before. Delphine had continued to shove things into the room for a couple of years until the arthritis in her knees had gotten too bad.
Bulging green garbage sacks like the ones strewn all over the downstairs had encroached here too, but not as many. I nudged one with my toe and braced for rodents. The doughy give of the bag suggested it was full of clothes.
“Cam!” Delphine’s whine floated up the stairs.
I gritted my teeth. “Yes, ma’am?”
“You get that key to work yet?”
“Yes, ma’am. The door’s open. I’m looking around for the picture.” I listened for a moment, but she’d probably exhausted her lung capacity for the day, so no more yelling followed. I glanced around the room before abandoning it, leaving the door open to air it out. Delphine wouldn’t drag herself up to check on me, and Remy’s room could wait. Until she hollered again, I needed to get in some quality time with my physics book. Turns out, kinematics didn’t come naturally to me.
I crept down the stairs and retrieved my book bag, but inside my room, instead of fishing out my textbook like I should have, I reached forTrista and the Prince. Sometimes I read it because I missed Mom, but I’d left off reading last time right before her prince shows up. I wanted a reminder of what it looked like when the handsome guy appears and does his best to steal all of your waking moments instead of nodding his head at you in class one day and then ignoring you after that. I found my spot and sighed.
In Mom’s delicate watercolor, the prince bows to Tear Girl as his huntsmen look on. He doesn’t wear a scarlet coat or gold braid, only a simple square-cut shirt under a leather jerkin, but his bearing shouts nobility. Last fall, I patterned King Oberon’s costume in the school production ofAMidsummer Night’s Dreamon this painting.
The next page led to my least favorite section of the story. The prince’s men call him away, reminding him of his duties at the castle, but he won’t leave until he secures a promise from Trista that he’ll see her at the royal ball. “Please come,” Prince Sterling calls before the palmettos close behind him again.
I snapped the book shut and put it away. He basically said, “See you later,” just like Rhett had this morning. Stupid prince.
* * *
In Mom’s fairy tale, once the prince left, Tear Girl saw him again soon. Rhett, on the other hand, made himself scarce. Other than theater arts where he gave me a head nod every day, it was like he was a figment of my imagination. I spent a few days worrying about it, then told myself it was idiotic to get all uptight about him not paying attention to me since I’d pretty much told him I didn’t want him to.
But it bugged me.
I returned his head nod in theater arts every day until Wednesday afternoon when I pretended I didn’t see him, tired of repeating the awkward moment.
Which is why I was surprised to find him at my locker on Thursday morning.
“Hey,” I said.
He handed me a small carton of orange juice.
