“So it worked out just fine. We drove all the way back to Odessa and figured out you and Stevie were a size two, you got your dress, and we didn’t have to listen to you cry about it anymore.”
I smiled at this new story of my brother. It sounded like him. And like Rusty, to have gone along with it. He was the one person Finn never had to ask twice for anything. He held my eyes a moment, then laughed, and I did too. It felt good to talk about Finn that way. Together. After a second, though, it kind of trailed off into the sound of the rain on the roof. I looked down and fiddled with the seat belt.
Rusty leaned back and took another drink from his flask. “Yeah. There’s a lot of stupid things your brother talked me into.” His eyes slid over to me. “And now you. Carrying on the family tradition.”
“I didn’t talk you into anything. You passed out in my car.”
“You kept driving.” That smirk again.
I smiled. “I know. Stupid.”
“This’ll work out just fine too. The rain’ll stop soon and Pala won’t be too banged up, and we’ll keep going.” He shrugged. “Or maybe we won’t. Doesn’t matter. He woulda liked your crazy-ass idea, anyway.”
“Yeah?” I smiled. “I bet he would’ve liked that you came along for the ride.”
Rusty nodded vaguely and looked out the window. “Maybe so. Jury’s still out on that one.”
12
We got cozy. Not cozy like close to each other, but cozy like when it’s pouring rain out and you’re in the house all warm and safe, and you could sit there forever, watching it stream down the windows in wavy little rivers. It was that kind of feeling sitting in Finn’s car, with its old vinyl smell all around us and the rain drumming down steadily outside. Rusty and I lay stretched out in each of our seats, passing the last of our road snacks back and forth.
I shook the sour powder from the bottom of the Skittles bag into my palm and licked it off. “There was a lot of stuff you and Finn did together that I never knew about, huh?”
“I guess so.” Rusty shrugged. “Bet you didn’t tell him everything either.”
I rolled the remaining sugar granules on the roof of my mouth, thinking about it, then swallowed. “No, not everything. But you guys had secrets together that started a long time ago.” I could remember exactly when. “It was third grade,” I said. “That summer after you guys finished third grade and I just got out of second. That was the summer you guys dropped me for each other and stopped telling me things.”
Rusty looked at me like he was surprised, or maybe he just knew there was more coming.
“Yep. Girls hold on to those things. That was the first summer you guys didn’t let me ride bikes down to the creek with you or go to your rope swing or camp out in the backyard or anything.” I was a little surprised at how all my seven-year-old indignation came rushing back, clear as day. But up until then, the three of us had been like a team. We did everything together—me working my hardest to keep up with what the boys were doing and them slowing down just enough to let me. Next to my parents dying, which I hardly remembered, Finn and Rusty deciding I couldn’t be a part of it anymore was the most traumatic thing that had happened in my short little life.
“I don’t remember any of that,” Rusty said.
“Course you don’t. You weren’t the one left behind cryin’ while your brother and the friend who used to play Barbie-Legos with you ran off together and said you couldn’t come because you were too little. And a girl.”
“Barbie-Legos?”
“Yes, Barbie-Legos. You played it with me if Finn was doing something you didn’t want to do. You’d bring all your Lego guys over to my Barbie house, and they’d have pool parties and barbecues together.” I paused, remembering something else. “And your Lego guys were always trying to get my Barbies to go skinny-dipping.”
Rusty nearly spit out his sunflower seeds. “Maybe I do remember that,” he said, laughing.
“And then you guys ditched me.” I tried to keep from smiling, to see if I could emphasize just how broken up I’d been to be kicked out of the boys’ club, but the thought of him sitting there with me and my Barbies was too funny not to.
Rusty put a hand to his chest. “My apologies, then. For trying to get your dolls naked and then ditching you for your brother.”
“Thank you,” I said solemnly. “Maybe one of these days I’ll get over both.”
We were quiet a moment, and the sound of the rain grew louder. Rusty leaned his head back against the window and looked over at me. “You know, you can’t blame it all on me.”
“Blame what?”
“That you didn’t hang around us later on. I tried, in tenth grade, to keep you around.”
I sat up. “What’re you talking about?”
Rusty popped a few sunflower seeds in his mouth and grinned. “I told Finn I was gonna take you to homecoming.”
“You did not.” I leaned over the seat, all kinds of interested to hear about this.
“I did. You were cute that year. Probably why he told me no.”
That year . . . as opposed to now? I wanted to say something snappy back, but in a strange way, I was too flattered that he’d thought so. Rusty was the only other sophomore besides Finn on varsity that year, and when they’d come home after practice, I’d made sure I was around. Maybe pass through the kitchen in short shorts, acting like I couldn’t care less that Rusty was there. But I’d thought he was cute that year too. Until after homecoming, when I heard he hooked up with this slutty senior girl in the backseat of the Pala. Then I tried to boycott riding in it for a little while out of principle, but it was too far to walk to school. Instead I settled on making a big show of disinfecting it in front of Finn and Rusty, to make sure they knew the depth of my disgust.