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  Caleb must have gotten Kelby talking at some point because a week later, he whispered to me that Kelby had asked their parents to use the correct pronouns. They received angry resistance and ultimately a slap for their efforts.

  He asked me not to tell Kelby that I knew.

  “I don’t think they wanted me to tell you, but I figured you deserved it after what happened.”

  We never talked about it again, and I certainly never mentioned it to Kelby. The bruise vanished under concealer and rouge along with any lingering hurt. I crushed the temptation to hug them and let them beat me at gender-clueless video games.

  July

  Slate clouds spat at us, though thankfully not enough to interfere with Caleb’s pre-birthday balcony barbecue. My job was to bring in the raw meats and vegetables from the kitchen and dump dirty plates in the sink. Caleb and Kelby’s job was to bicker over how well-done to make the burgers. Siblings were stupid, and so was my ‘let siblings fight in peace’ philosophy.

  “Guys, you’re not gonna share the same burger. Just make one the way Caleb likes it, one the way Kelby likes it, and one the way I like it, which is nonexistent because I prefer hot dogs, which I do not see on this grill. Ahem.”

  “But he likes to burn his and the smell ruins everything else,” said Kelby.

  “It’s my party and I’ll burn burgers if I want to,” said Caleb. Kelby huffed an “Argh, fine” but he smiled as he said it. Caleb made a show of opening the packet of hot dogs and placing them on the grill one by one. I stuck my tongue out and disposed of the hot dog packaging.

  Fight resolved. Score one for me.

  August

  I slammed my laptop shut. No more overly peppy tweeting about self-wetting baby dolls today!

  Abandoning the laptop on the bed, I went to retrieve Kelby for our weekly video game mini-marathon. I almost felt guilty about planning to stay indoors on such a bright day, but we couldn’t possibly play video games outside. The TV was too heavy for us to drag all the way down to the courtyard.

  Kelby’s room contained lacrosse gear, fat books, apples both natural and technical, several Beanie Babies and a stylish black coat, but absolutely no Kelby. Huh. I knew she came home on time…

  Before worry could set in, Kelby returned, holding a few envelopes and a bagged news-paper.

  “The old guy across the hall is visiting his grandkids for a week,” she said. “He asked me to pick up his mail while he’s away.”

  George Kozlowski. He’d lived in this building since before Caleb and I moved in, and he’d probably still be here after we moved out. He seemed nice enough.

  “Clearly he doesn’t know you as well as we do,” I said.

  “Please. What am I gonna do, steal his AARP magazine?”

  “Hey, they’ve got interesting articles.”

  September

  George came home on Labor Day. Kelby gave him an hour to settle in before gathering the bagful of junk mail and newspapers that had accumulated in his absence. She returned with a smile like summer vacation.

  “He said I look just like his granddaughter,” she said, and she glowed for the rest of the day.

  October

  Kelby and I sat by the front door on barstools borrowed from the kitchen. At the sound of small running footsteps, I put on my top hat and Kelby brushed imaginary dust from his long dark dress. Yes, his. After initially resisting the Halloween spirit, he made a last-second decision to dress as Elphaba, even though he had written HEre’s Kelby on the board that morning.

  “Are you trying to make my head explode?” Caleb joked.

  “It’s Halloween,” Kelby said, laughing and stealing the last strip of bacon off my plate. “You’re supposed to dress as something you’re not.”

  Me, I dressed as Willy Wonka because then no one would look at me funny if I snuck a chocolate here and there (“I’m getting into character!”). Caleb just threw on a trench coat and called himself the Highlander, the lazy bum.

  Caleb watched Ghostbusters while Kelby and I slowly gave away our bowl of Snickers, Almond Joys and Hershey’s. We’d planned on giving Reese’s as well, but between the three of us, they hadn’t survived the weekend.

  A knock at the door. On the other side stood Sara Hardy the pink pony from two floors down. We gushed over her cheap generic costume and gave her an extra candy for being so cute. We did that for everyone who wasn’t a six-foot teenager with a pillow case, but Sara and Sara’s Mom didn’t have to know that.

  Ghostbusters ended and Caleb kissed the top of my head before disappearing into our room for the night. Kelby and I stayed at our posts for another half-hour. A parent or two gave Kelby odd looks, but as far as the little sci-fi villains, princesses, jack-o-lanterns and bumblebees were concerned, anyone who answered the door with candy on Halloween was fine by them.

  November

  After moving straight from my parents’ house to the apartment with Caleb (and later Kelby), being home alone still felt weird. Kelby had stayed late at school to work on a group project about the Hiroshima bombing or something equally cheerful. Caleb had gone to pick up new light bulbs to replace the dead one in the bathroom. The silence bounced around my ear canals until I popped in my earphones and turned on my Get Your Butt to Work playlist. It worked until Caleb returned, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.

  “Take a ticket and don’t cut in line, sir.”

  “There’s a line?”

  “Yes, and this Facebook post is at the front of it. Then my email, then Scarlett Johansson, then you. No, wait. Email, Scarlett Johansson, everyone from Queen, then you.”

  “Ouch.”

  Caleb settled his chin on my head as I tried to think of tolerable autumn-related puns to plug Angelo’s seasonal dishes. ‘You’ll FALL for our black bean soup!’ ‘Don’t LEAF without trying our cranberry apple salad!’

  “Are you trying to stimulate people’s appetites or kill them?”

  “And who are you? Shakespeare?” I said, deleting the (admittedly terrible) wordplay. “Like you could do better.”

  “For your information, I have a spectacular idea.”

  “And it is?”

  “Let’s go out. It’s been a while since we did anything.”

  “Yeah.” Five months, to be exact. I missed couple time. “We could go antiquing. Be-cause we obviously don’t have enough junk lying around.”

  Caleb laughed and agreed and out we went, the wind stinging my ears with a hundred needles as we tread the familiar path to the antiques shop five blocks away. The cramped, cluttered shelves smelled of old cloth and good wood. We squeezed past ornate dining chairs we didn’t need to examine 19th-century jewelry boxes we didn’t want, all to the ticking of a grand-father clock that had stood in that same corner for three years now. I looked and hmmed and sneezed and critiqued but mostly I held Caleb’s hand, basking in the tranquility.

  December

  I returned from mailing Christmas cards to find the apartment looking and smelling like the world’s sloppiest bakery. Caleb and Kelby loved Christmas more than you’d expect from people who vigorously toed the line of atheism. We hadn’t even cleared the Thanksgiving dishes when Caleb cranked up the Christmas songs. Kelby dug The Muppet Christmas Carol out of his closet and we watched it that same night, snuggled under the poinsettia-covered quilt Mom bought us several Christmases ago. Sadly, that gusto failed to manifest itself as non-mutant gingerbread men.

  “You know I bought cookies like three days ago, right?”

  “That was the problem,” said Kelby. “We knew, so we ate them.”

  Figures. Still, it was hard to argue with the scent of ginger and molasses and the sound of two very similar laughs warming the kitchen. I shed my coat and purse and leaned against the counter. The cookies looked even uglier up close. Biting their heads off would be a pleasure.

  “We were thinking of giving some to our parents, but they’re a lit
tle too deformed, I think,” said Caleb. Kelby pressed a decorative button into a cookie with unusual force. Uh-oh.

  “I don’t want to go home for Christmas,” he said.

  “Come on now,” Caleb said. “You agreed. We spent Thanksgiving here, so now we go home for Christmas.”

  “I changed my mind. You’re supposed to have fun at Christmas, not get yelled at for ignoring anyone who uses the wrong pronoun.”

  Caleb’s jaw twitched. I dug my fingers into my arm. Let it go, babe. You know you and Kelby will never agree about this. Don’t fight about it right before the holidays.

  He exhaled through his nose and said, “You haven’t seen them since summer.”

  “That recently?”

  Another twitch. Please don’t do this, guys.

  “I don’t think one day is too much to ask,” Caleb said.

  “It is when it’s Christmas.”

  “You agreed!”

  “That was just to get out of seeing them at Thanksgiving!”

  “Time out!” I said. Their boiling glares flattened into a simmer. “Now look, I know Kelby agreed, but maybe he could go home for Christmas Eve instead and then come spend Christmas with me or his friends.”

  Kelby instantly brightened, turning to Caleb for approval. Caleb threw a glob of green frosting onto a one-legged gingerbread man and smeared it around with a spoon.

  “Christmas Eve,” Caleb said. Serious. Confirming.

  “Yes. Promise.”

  “You try to weasel your way out of this one and I withhold your presents.”

  Kelby laughed and nodded. The tension melted like snow on a sunny day. I smiled around a bite of deformed, lumpy gingerbread.

  “Oh hey, we finished decorating the living room,” Kelby said. “Wanna see?”

  I followed Caleb while Kelby skipped ahead, turning off the living room lights so the Christmas lights twinkled in the sudden darkness. The lights were strung from the fan in the middle of the ceiling, looping outward and framing that stupid grandfather clock we bought just to wipe the resigned pout from the shop owner’s face. Red and green garlands draped over bookshelves, and the small tree boasted ornaments shaped like snowflakes and superheroes and silver stars. Beneath the tree sat a modest assortment of ceramic houses nestled among white blankets, with tiny figurines spread about to bring the little town to life. Cheap plastic snowflakes shone like sun-warmed crystal.

  “Wow, this is great! It looks like something out of a fairy tale.”

  “Fairytale of New York, maybe,” said Kelby. Caleb slapped him upside the head and offered to make hot chocolate. Not being idiots, Kelby and I accepted and waited among the lights, looking around with wide eyes. Kelby turned on the radio at some point. Moments later, I reveled in the warmth of my drink and my family’s love as the first verse of a loosely familiar carol… wait.

  “The Night Santa Went Crazy? Really?” I said, even as Caleb frowned at the incongruous violence wafting from his innocent stereo.

  “It’s one of the only holiday songs I like,” Kelby said with a shrug.

  “Guess I shouldn’t have gotten you that Michael Bublé Christmas album then.”

  Kelby looked at me, expression wavering between suspicious perplexity and murderous intent. I managed to hold the poker face for three seconds before a giggle slipped free, and Kelby deflated with relief. Caleb took the opportunity to change stations, settling on Johnny Mathis. Kelby rolled his eyes but didn’t change it back, instead reaching for the steaming snowman mug on the coffee table. We all squished into the couch, cocoa in hand, and bickered over the music until sundown.

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  About the Author

  Eileen Gonzalez lives and writes in Connecticut, where she takes online classes at Johns Hopkins University. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys researching future writing projects, collecting comic books, and spending time with her Maltese, AJ. Her next novel is A Hoodlum in Haddam; it will feature Kelby as a supporting character and will be available in March 2016.

  Other Works

  Drought

  Jury’s Greatest Hits Series

  The Book of Jodie

  Jury’s Greatest Hits

  Without a Trace

  The Spring Break Sleuths Series

  A Sinner in San Diego

  A Hoodlum in Haddam (available March 2016)

  Connect with the Author

  Follow me on Twitter: Eileen2theStars

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  Become a fan on Goodreads: Eileen Gonzalez

  Visit My Website: GonzalezwithaZ.com