“What, Wrennie doesn’t throw any wild parties?”
“Hey, look what the wind blew in,” my mother said, raising her glass toward the door.
I turned to see a rather disheveled Pete, as if he’d literally been windblown, walking toward our table. Brooke got up and threw her arms around him. My stomach lurched.
Pete shrugged off his coat and hooked it over a chair at the adjacent table. “Hey, Wren,” he said, smoothing down his hair and taking the seat across from me.
With his dark, unruly curls and green eyes, Pete was exceptionally handsome, but he was so goofy once you got to know him that his good looks became less intimidating. I wondered if he knew that I knew he’d knocked up my sister. One thing was for sure: Between Brooke and Pete, this kid was going to be drop-dead gorgeous.
“How was your Thanksgiving? Your parents must have been thrilled you made it home,” my mother said, beaming.
Pete chuckled, but it was guarded. He folded his hands and glanced at Brooke. And then the world moved frame by frame.
I could feel the tremor of what was about to happen but was powerless to act on it. Please, please, Brooke, not now.
A waiter came by and dropped off a carafe of coffee for my father. Mom sat in suspended animation, waiting to hear about Pete’s Thanksgiving. Josh had nodded off, a shock of dirty blond hair partially hiding his eyes. I pinched his leg, and he jerked awake.
“What?”
“We’re pregnant!” Brooke blurted out, grabbing Pete’s hand.
Silence shrouded the table. The only sound was the slow trickle of my father pouring coffee into his cup. That cup became the collective focus of the table—as if we knew that, once it was full, something disastrous would happen. My father put down the carafe more firmly than necessary, then turned his attention to Brooke and Pete, waiting for more. Brooke’s eyes locked on mine—my cue to have her back.
“Holy shit!” “What awesome news!” Josh and I said at the same time.
My mother was momentarily stunned, mouth open, eyes darting between Brooke and Pete. My father spoke.
“What does this mean?”
Brooke launched into what must have been a rehearsed speech, taking turns with Pete who chimed in as he stroked her hand. My heart cringed a bit, watching them both become so squirmy and awkward. Brooke was holding it together as best as she could. Pete looked like he’d rather be hiding under the table, out of my father’s line of vision.
There was a new plan. They were going to get married during winter break. The baby was due in the late spring, so they could both finish their course work. Brooke had already found day care close to campus for the fall. She and Pete would coordinate their classes as much as they could, and while money would be tight, they were sure they could handle it. This was only a blip in their lives. They loved each other, had planned on getting married and having a family anyway. Maybe it wasn’t ideal, but that’s how life goes.
Halfway through, my father began kneading his forehead. My mother’s face was a mask, the giddiness from moments ago evaporated.
“Josh, you and Wren should go,” she said, picking at a thread on the tablecloth.
“Mom, we can handle it. It’s not like we don’t know where babies come from.”
Her eyes cut through me. Josh was on his feet, tugging me to get up.
“C’mon, squirt, let’s fly.”
Once we reached home, Josh retreated to his attic room, and I took solace in a hot shower. I knew I should feel lucky that Mom dismissed us—who would want to be in the middle of that conversation? But being sent away made me feel weird, like an outsider.
I dressed in sweats and ventured out to see if anyone had come home. The house was silent, except for strains of Blink-182 coming from Josh’s room. I smiled and opened the door a crack. His lights were on, so I made my way up the creaky, carpeted steps into his lair.
He was busy typing away on his computer. I knocked on the newel post so I wouldn’t startle him. Next to him, on his desk, was an open bottle of beer. Considering his condition, I thought he’d want to lay off the stuff at least for a night. I raised my eyebrows.
“Hair of the dog, Wrennie, best hangover remedy,” he said. “Want one?”
“Drinking . . . here? Don’t you think Mom and Dad—”
“Wren, Golden Girl has screwed up. The parental units are officially checked out for the moment. I could be hosting an orgy up here, and no one would know. Come on, live a little, have a brewski with your big bro,” he said, reaching into the small fridge by his desk, cracking open a bottle, and offering it to me.
I took the beer and leaned against the edge of his desk. “What do you think is going to happen with Brooke and Pete?”
“I thought you learned all that in health class,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“Duh, I just meant . . . it’ll be strange, them being married . . . a baby . . . you’ll be an uncle.”
He clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “Wow, Josh is not an uncle name. Aunt Wren. Sounds like a lady with cankles who bakes great pies.”
“Thanks for that mental picture,” I said, grabbing his senior yearbook. My heart raced. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Grayson might be in there. I plopped myself down on Josh’s very unkempt bed. He’d been back for less than twenty-four hours, and his room—littered with dirty clothing, empty cups, and a plate with a half-eaten sandwich—was as though he’d never left. I punched up the pillows and sat back, trying to sound casual. “Do you know a guy named Grayson Barrett? He went to Saint Gabe’s?”
He clicked at his keyboard feverishly before answering me.
“Got kicked out . . . that Grayson Barrett? I know who he is, but I don’t know him. A bit of a douche nozzle around his lax bros, if I remember correctly.”
“Don’t call him that,” I said, grimacing and casually leafing through the yearbook. The end covers were full of signatures and notes to Josh, reminding him to Stay cool, bro! and Party hard!
“What? Douche nozzle or lax bro? They’re interchangeable,” he said, pivoting in his computer chair with a smirk on his face.
“Josh, stop.”
“Ah, so someone is currr-aaaaving a little boo-tay.”
“It’s not like that!”
“So what’s it like, then?” he asked, getting serious.
I ran my finger along a sweat drizzle on my beer label.
“He’s the one I saved from choking.”
Josh’s eyes registered surprise. “Damn, you should have let him choke.”
“How can you say that?”
“Wren, I’m not serious. Well, maybe a little,” he said, chuckling as he checked his IMs again. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you’re quite the hero. Doesn’t Barrett, like, owe you his life now or something?”
“Hardly.”
“C’mon, why the interest?”
“We hung out the other day. He seemed kinda cool, I guess. What?”
“You don’t want to get involved with a guy like that.”
“A guy like what? I thought you said you didn’t know him. You know, just forget it,” I said, leaning back onto his pillows and focusing on the yearbook again. I already had my own opinion of Grayson, and I didn’t need Josh reaching into his bag of slang to pull out something more colorful than douche nozzle. That was descriptive enough.
“Well, considered yourself warned.”
“I’m ignoring you, just in case you haven’t noticed.”
I thumbed through the yearbook, went directly to the juniors, to the Bs, scanned down the rows of boys, and found . . . nothing. At the end of the junior section, it read . . . Absent photo day: Grayson Barrett, Liam McNaught, John Skora.