"Paige," Austin says. "I want to ask you something
important."
And then we're on the ocean, in a boat that's going
down.
As the cold, dark sea closed over my head, the sound of
the alarm bels ripped into my ears. I took a deep breath,
even though I was underwater. I kicked, the tight clutch of
the waves around my ankles becoming the tangled grasp
of sheets around my feet as I opened my eyes and
fumbled, without seeing, for the phone.
"What?" At this hour I couldn't be expected to be polite,
could I?
"Paige?"
I blinked, not wanting to look at my bedside clock's
numbers. It was way too fucking early to be up. "Arty.
What's the matter? Where's Mama?"
"Mama's stil sleeping. And Leo's at work," he added,
though I hadn't asked. "I'm hungry."
"Make yourself some cereal." I stifled a yawn and
"Make yourself some cereal." I stifled a yawn and
pondered giving in to a hangover that wouldn't have
bothered me with just a few more hours' sleep.
"There isn't any."
"No Cheerios? No Raisin Bran?"
My little brother, the only other sibling I'd ever actualy
lived with, made a familiar noise of disgust. "I don't like
those kind."
"Then I guess you must not be that hungry." I was hungry,
but didn't feel like getting out of bed at the butt-crack of
dawn to fix toast. "Arty, it's too early to cal me. What did
I tel you about that?"
"Can't you come over and make me some pancakes?" His
little-boy voice sounded very far away. I pictured him in
his Spider-Man pajamas, bare feet swinging because his
legs weren't long enough to reach the floor. "Please?"
Maybe if I kept my eyes closed I'd fal back to sleep. I
snuggled deeper under my soft blankets. "Buddy, I don't
live there anymore. I told you that. I told you I couldn't just
come over whenever you caled."
Silence.
"But I miss you," Arthur said in a tiny voice.
I sighed. "I miss you, too, buddy. How about I come
down and take you to the movies sometime soon?"
"When?" At nearly seven, the kid had been reading since
he was four and could tel time on an analogue clock, a
skil that sometimes stumped me. There wasn't much that
slipped past him. "Today?"
"Not today, no. Maybe later this week."
"When? When?"
I couldn't think straight and just tossed out a day.
"Wednesday?"
"Saturday. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday.
That's a week!"
He sounded so dismayed I hated to laugh. Laughing, in
fact, hurt my head. "Not quite. Five days."
"That's too long!" Arthur's voice pitched high enough to
"That's too long!" Arthur's voice pitched high enough to
dril my tender ears.
"You've got gymnastics on Tuesday, and Monday I've got
an appointment in the evening. Sorry, buddy. You have to
wait until Wednesday. Besides," I said, offering an
incentive against despair, "the new Power Heroes movie
comes out on Wednesday. How about that?"
"Okay." He didn't sound convinced, only resigned. "But I'm hungry now, Paige."
"Cereal. Or have a snack from the drawer."
"Mama says no snacks from the drawer until after
breakfast."
"Aren't there any cereal bars in the drawer?" I bit back
another yawn. If I didn't get back to sleep in the next ten
minutes I was not going to be a happy camper.
"Yesss…" Even Arthur knew where I was going with this,
but he sounded like it might be too good to be true.
"Have one of those. They're cereal, right?"
"Can I tel Mama you said it was okay?"
"Can I tel Mama you said it was okay?"
"Sure." It wouldn't be the first time she'd holer at me for giving the kid permission to do something she'd have
refused. On the other hand, this was the woman who'd
alowed me to go to school in a pair of hand-me-down,
slip-on Candie's shoes in the sixth grade and bought me
my first package of rubbers in the tenth. She was a
different sort of mother to Arthur than she'd been to me.
"Now let me go back to sleep, okay?"
"Okay. Bye, Paige."
"Bye."
"I love you," my little brother said before I could hang up.
It wasn't the first time he'd ever said it, but suddenly the
memory of how he'd smeled as a baby washed over me
with enough force to push my eyelids open like snapped-
open blinds. How his hair had been so soft against my lips
when I kissed his little baby head, and how the heavy
weight of him had filed my arms and lap. How I used to
hold him while I watched hour after hour of bad TV, just
because he was so smal and sweet. Just because he loved
me.
me.
"I love you, too, buddy. I'l see you on Wednesday."
He had a seven-year-old's social graces and didn't say
goodbye again, just hung up. I put the phone back in the
cradle of its receiver and my head back in the cradle of my
pilow, but sleep had vanished and there was no getting it
back.
With a groan, I looked at the clock. Almost eight. And I'd
gone to sleep, what, just before six this morning? God. I
was so going to pay that kid back one day, maybe when
he was a teenager and prone to sleeping as late as he
could…yeah. I'd wake him up.
Unfortunately, my revenge was far-flung and I was stil
awake. I stretched and sat up, waiting for the rush and boil
of acid stomach or the pound of a headache, but aside
from a gnawing hunger, I felt al right. At least until I heard
the muted beep from my cel phone, which I'd left
abandoned in my sparkly purse under the pile of my
discarded clothes. I had to dig past my Steve Madden
pumps to reach it.
Five missed cals.
Five? Crap. I thumbed the keypad to check out the
numbers. I had voice mails, too, though without dialing in I
couldn't tel how many. Kira had caled me around 4:00
a.m. but hadn't left a message. That could be good or bad,
depending. One was an old cal from my mother I hadn't
deleted. The other three were from Austin.
Triple crap.
The voice mails were from him, too, half an hour apart.
The first two were brief "when are you going to get here?"
messages. The last one had come in around six-fifteen,
after I'd already gone to bed. It turned the corners of my
mouth down.
"Look, I know I've been an asshole to you in the past."
Then fifteen seconds of awkward silence, punctuated only
by the soft in-out of his breathing. "I'm sorry. I just…I was
a fuckwad, and I'm sorry. Cal me, okay? Please."
A few more seconds of silence and he added, "Please."
Is there anything more simultaneously pathetic and
arousing than a pleading man?
I couldn't bring myself to delete that message. I thought I
might want to listen to it a couple-twenty more times. I
thought I might want to get that statement, "Sorry, I'm a
fuckwad.—Austin Miller" embroidered on a tea towel
and wipe my hands with it.
It was the only time Austin had ever apologized to me for
anything he'd ever done. I wasn't sure it meant anything
now. Not after al this time had passed.
I didn't delete the message, but I didn't cal him back,
either. Instead, I hauled my sorry ass out of bed and
stumbled to the bathroom where I peed for what felt like
an hour and brushed my teeth and puled my hair on top of
my head in a messy ponytail.
I wanted to go back to sleep, but I knew better than to
expect to be able to. I was up for the day now. My
stomach rumbled and I took my last two slices of wheat
bread from the fridge, where I kept it to prevent mold, and