It makes me think of the first game Lara came to and how I could feel her gaze on me the entire night. How I’d played my hardest, wanting to impress her. To show her that I could be something special, too.
Maybe I should ask Shelby about Lara casually. See if she can tell me anything about what Lara’s been up to the past five years. But I don’t want Shelby to start making guesses about Lara and me. If only I had other friends in town to ask about her.
“Hello?” Shelby presses, and I realize I still have my phone to my ear, that I’ve been lost in thought.
“I don’t know,” I grumble. “Now until September still might not be enough time to get everything done in here. He wasn’t taking care of the place at all, Shelb.”
“He was doing his best.”
It’s not the first time she’s said something like this, something to defend our dad, and it’s not the first time I’ve skated over it, not wanting to get into it with her.
But still, something uneasy grows in the pit of my stomach. This idea that she got a different version of him than I did. That for some reason, he put in more effort with her, more effort once I was gone.
That, or she has been a lot more willing to put on blinders when it comes to him.
Shelby speaks again before I can, “You’re really telling me you don’t like the sound of doing a bit of demo on it?”
“Demo?” I ask, glancing around the kitchen, already imagining what it might feel like to rip some of these cabinets right off the walls.
“Yeah,” she says, and I can tell from the tone of her voice that she knows she’s got me, that I’m a fish circling the hook. “If everything is as bad as you say it is, you’re probably going to need to strip it down. Maybe I could even spare a few guys to come and help you with it.”
“No,” I say, glaring down at the carpet I’m already fantasizing about tearing out of the floor, “that’s all right.”
I may be a fish, but at least I’m smart enough to know when I’ve been hooked. She baited me with the idea of demolition, and I’m falling for it.
“Great,” Shelby says, and I can practically hear her smirk through the phone. “Send pictures when it’s down to bare bones.”
After showeringand getting ready to go and meet Lara, I go downstairs and walk into the kitchen.
“Fuck!” I say, nearly throwing the pile of clothes in my hand, thankful that I got completely dressed before coming out of the bathroom. “Ever heard of knocking?”
“I did,” my sister says from on her knees in front of the sink, not looking at me. “For three minutes. When you didn’t come, I let myself in.”
“I didn’t know you had a key.”
“I didn’t know you had hearing loss.”
“I wasintheshower.”
When she says nothing, I let out a sigh and tuck my clothes into my duffel bag. Shelby is on her hands and knees, looking at something under the sink.
“No use fixing that. I’m tearing it out.”
“Hmm.” She makes a noise and sits up, turning to look at me. She’s still wearing coveralls from her job, and her hair is thrown up into a knot on the top of her head. “You know, I think the first step might actually be going through all the stuff in the attic.”
I wave a hand, not wanting to think about Mom’s stuff up there. Or what I might find belonging to Dad.
“You let me handle this. Focus on your own stuff.”
“Yeah, well…” she wipes her hand on a towel hanging from her belt. “I feel bad for making you do this. So, I came over to help.”
“I don’t need your help. Besides, I’m not working on the house right now, anyway.”
“What are you doing, then?”
I’m tempted to saynothing, but I know that will be worse than giving a vague answer, so I go with a half-truth instead. “I’m hanging out with an old friend tonight.”
Shelby pauses, turns, and gives me a once-over as though she’s just now realizing that I’m freshly showered and wearing a nice button-up. Her eyebrows shoot up.
